Thursday, October 18, 2012

Uterus, be gone!

Hello out there in internet land!  Just popping by to give you the latest.

For about a year and half I've been dealing with endometriosis.  Its a condition that causes uterin tissue to over grow and grow in places it shouldn't.  This overgrowth aggrivates nerves and is VERY painful.  A few things were tried (hormonal stuff) that didn't work so I was sent of to a doctor who specializes in pelvic pain.  This doc tried one more hormonal treatment called lupron.  It was great!  Wow!  No pain at all after I had been on it for a couple of weeks.  This is not a medication that can be used longer term so the hope was that after three months of it the endo would be beat back enough that my regular birth control could keep it in check. 

Sadly, that did not turn out to be the case.  Within six weeks of stopping the lupron I was having pain again.  The specialist that I saw told me flat out that she was so concerned about my CF being an issue that she would not operate on me, which is what I would need to deal with the endo for good.  Uhg.

Right about that time my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  She was sent to Seattle from eastern Washington for her surgery.  Mom is going to be fine, her cancer has a 95% cure rate with surgery alone!  While mom was here I met her surgeon and he seemed fantastic, as did the rest of the staff who took care of her at the hospital!

When things had settled down a bit in my life I marched into my general practitioners office and asked for a referal to mom's doctor.  After listening to my reasons for wanting it my doc put it through!  A couple of weeks later his office called me and was ready to schedule surgery the following week!  While I was very impressed by that I told that I needed some time to get this organized.  So it was scheduled for the second week of October.

Well, last week I had my total hysterectomy!  I no longer have a uterus, ovaries, or felopian tubes and this is just fine by me!  I spent two nights in the hospital with wonderful nurses who were only concerned for my care and comfort!  They brought a vase for the flowers that someone gave me, they offered my mom coffee and juice, they made sure that my pain was under control and that I was eating.  Seriously, I have never had a better hospital stay!  There was no worrying about getting my meds correctly and on time, the nurses would just magically appear with the right thing at the right time.  Someone came right away any time I needed help with something.

I am now recovering at home with my dad taking care of me, and the cat of course.  I'm almost off of the heavy pain meds entirely and getting around pretty well.  Dad will be going home on Saturday but after that I have tons of friends that are willing and able to help me when I need anything!  It seems weird to say that the most invasive surgery I've ever had has been one of the easiest to deal with, but its the truth!