Never in a million years did I think I would be closing out 2024 with a total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingectomy. But after spending well over 500 days in pain and with such intense nausea every single day, I was willing to remove anything and everything that could take that away. Trust me when I say, there were days I thought “just take away the nausea, I’m OK with dealing with the pain”. Seriously. I ate so much chicken and turkey over the course of the last 500 days because it was the only thing that didn’t make me feel even sicker.
*Image is courtesy of Pix4Free by Nick Youngson.
Road to Total Hysterectomy
As I mentioned, I had been dealing with the pain and nausea for quite some time. I have a really good primary care doctor that exhausted every test to try and uncover what was going on. Nothing popped up. He then recommended that I see a gastro doctor. That was a waste of time. He thought I was dealing with acid reflux, despite me telling him that I never get acid reflux. But I said I would give the prescription a try. That was a mistake. One week of taking it and I began dealing with another issue…ACID REFLUX! I finally decided to try one more doctor before giving up. So I made an appointment with my OB/GYN.
Was the OB/GYN Finally the Answer?
Meeting with my OB/GYN didn’t go exactly how I had hoped. He did an ultrasound, which did reveal a cyst on my ovary, but he said that the size of that cyst would not cause the nausea and pain I had been dealing with. In passing, he did mention the possibility of endometriosis and told me that I could get a hysterectomy to get rid of it. However, after I left that appointment, I began researching endometriosis, and while it seemed to fit my symptoms a bit, it didn’t seem like it would be cured by simply removing my uterus. Since our phones are like a little spy in our pocket, I began getting ads for things related to endometriosis. When I logged into Facebook, a group for people with endometriosis that lives in my state, popped up. I joined. That was win the real answers began piling up!
Meeting with an OB/GYN Specialist
After I joined the group, one doctors name was mentioned in a lot of different posts. I began to research this doctor. From my research I learned that he performs surgery for endometriosis and will cut out any and all endometriosis that he finds. This, coupled with a hysterectomy could solve my problems…if I had endometriosis. I immediately made an appointment with this doctor. Within the first few minutes of conversation, I felt, for the first time, that I was heading in the right direction. After hearing my history, he felt that there was a possibility that I was dealing with endometriosis, but even more than that, he thought I had something called adenomyosis, a condition where endometrial tissue grows into the muscular wall of the uterus. I decided that I wanted to go ahead with the total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingectomy (the removal of both fallopian tubes).
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Time for the Hysterectomy Surgery
To say I was nervous for surgery would be an understatement. I was terrified. Not for the actual surgery and going under anesthesia part, or even the pain afterwards. No, I was scared that he would open me up and find nothing and I would be back at square one, recovering from surgery. However, that was not the case. The surgeon did not find any endometriosis. Instead he found severe adenomyosis and adhesions everywhere. My bladder was not only adhered to the top of my uterus, but it was folded in half. My ovaries were stretch way up and adhered to my uterus, as well. He was able to free up all of the adhesions, remove my uterus, cervix, and fallopian tubes, as well as fill my bladder and check it for any issues related to him removing the adhesions. Thankfully there were no issues!
Life after the Hysterectomy
It has been 10 days since my hysterectomy and let me tell you, that surgery was the best decision I have ever made. Putting the normal surgery recovery stuff aside (pain and nausea from the surgery itself) I have zero issues! The pain I felt before surgery…gone! The constant nausea I felt prior to surgery…gone! But not only that, the foods that I was not able to eat prior to surgery (like ground beef), I am now able to eat without any issues at all! I no longer wake up feeling bloated either. I know it’s creepy when our phones start showing us ads for things we were just talking about, but in this instance, I am very thankful to Facebook for having this group pop up for me to find. This total hysterectomy saved my life.
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