Hysterectomy and me

Hi everyone, I am the anonymous lady, here to share my very candid account of my recent hysterectomy, warts and all. There are a few different types of hysterectomy, and everyone’s story is different. This account is by no means intended to give the full picture of what can happen, or to represent every experience. I can only document my own journey, but I hope that by doing so I can give some insight into the procedure and the impact of the operation to help others.

Some of my posts will be written in retrospect, as I have only just decided to create this blog. I am now 20 weeks post-surgery, following my open, subtotal hysterectomy — a mouthful, I know. I will be using Ai to tidy my grammar, and I have changed some detail to remain anonymous.  My posts won’t always be in the correct order of events. I don’t know how often I will post, but I do intend to tell the whole story.

Let me start by explaining why I had a hysterectomy. Just before Covid, I had a private women’s scan. This was purely for my own peace of mind, as I had some abdominal pain linked to my periods. During this scan, I was made aware that I had a fibroid. I think it was just one at the time — I honestly can’t remember — but I was told it was nothing to worry about, that it was common, and that it may or may not have been the cause of my pain.

Fast forward a couple of years, and my periods started to change. It wasn’t drastic at first, but they progressively became more and more difficult. As time passed, my bleeding became heavier and my cycle became irregular. I had always been able to calculate my dates, but that was no longer the case. Eventually, it reached the point where I was having 10-day periods every two and a half weeks. There were also days when my bleeding was so heavy that I couldn’t leave the house.

I went to my GP, who was brilliant. She sent me for a scan and prescribed me mefenamic acid to try to control the bleeding. At this second scan (an NHS scan), I was told that I had multiple fibroids and I was referred to see a gynaecologist. I was offered the coil to manage the bleeding, but I was told that I wasn’t a candidate to have the fibroids removed, as the fibroids were not growing inside the canal of my womb, one was growing/hanging into it though.

I declined the offer of the coil, as I simply didn’t want a foreign object inside me to add to my worries. I was discharged. To be fair, the mefenamic acid did help with the bleeding. Although it didn’t stop the ten-day periods and I was still very heavy, it did manage the bleeding enough to mean I could leave the house on days when it would otherwise have been impossible. The rest of it, I just dealt with.  Eventually I had to stop these tablets as they brought me out in a rash on my face and it took me a couple of months to make the connection.

My period pain was awful — usually in the early hours. It would wake me up and I would genuinely think I was dying, before remembering that it was “just” my period. I reached a point where I had period pain almost all the time, with only a few days here and there of respite. My routine was always the same, night after night, wake early hours with pain so bad I thought I would die, go put the kettle on, go loo, take painkillers, make a hot water bottle and go back to bed.

Nearly three years later, sudden weight loss sent me back to the doctors. I was also going to the loo two or three times a night, constantly, and it wasn’t related to any infection. I started to wonder if my fibroids were the cause. I went back to the GP, who was brilliant once again, and she sent me for another scan.

During the scan, I asked whether the fibroids could be putting pressure on my bladder or abdomen when I lay down. She said she couldn’t see that this was the case, so off I left feeling alittle fed up thinking this was a dead end again — only to receive a call a few days later to say that another referral had been made to the hospital, for me to see a surgeon.

My appointment was booked quick. I sat down into the chair and we went straight into it, really. I was told that I needed a hysterectomy because there was over crowding due to the fibroids and that it would be open surgery. “Nothing to worry about,” I was told — just six weeks of no heavy lifting. I said yes on the spot, and this is the absolute truth: I didn’t really think any more about it. It felt like a total non-event to me. I was just excited to be resolving the issue, and I thought no more about it.  This would prove silly of me later on, but to be fair, it was played down in the appointment and I really am not the kind of person to make a fuss.

Fast forward to the day of the surgery. As I was taken down to theatre, holding a pillow to my chest, the stainless-steel doors opened and everyone was dressed in scrubs. That was the moment it hit me. I lay down on the bed and burst into tears...