Category Archives: Updates

My Hysterectomy Surgery – Part One

Hello friends! I wanted to start by thanking everyone for their prayers. My surgery is over and I am now home. Today it has been over a week since my surgery and I thought that I would sit down and try and write out some of the details of my surgery and recovery. Like some of my prior procedures, I have found that sharing honestly about my experience might be helpful for someone else who is planning on or considering a similar procedure. So if you do have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me and I will answer any questions you have!

My surgery was scheduled to start around 11:45 am on Thursday the 28th. We had to be at the hospital 2 hours early, and our drive to the hospital takes 2 hours so we left the house right away in the morning. We got checked in and they brought us back to a surgery prep room. I changed into a gown and then they put this awesome heated air blanket over me. It was glorious. Apparently there are studies that have found that patients that are warmed before, during and after surgery have less chance of infection. I am always freezing so this blanket was wonderful! We waited and waited and then found out that my surgeon had been delayed at another hospital that morning and had another surgery before mine…so my surgery didn’t start until almost 1:30pm. The worst part about waiting was that I was SO HUNGRY because I was unable to eat after midnight.

I was having a vaginal hysterectomy. Thankfully everything was able to be done vaginally and my Dr. didn’t have to use a scope to assist, which saved my belly from being blown up with gas. In the past, that has caused me the most discomfort, so I was grateful that she wasn’t needing to use that method. Prior to the surgery I googled and watched a vag. hyst. surgery on You Tube. I know that probably seems weird, but I wanted to have an idea of what was happening to me. I always felt at peace about having the surgery done. I wasn’t worried about it and knew that medically speaking it was the right choice for me. I will share how my Dr. confirmed that for me later.

I have a history of getting really nauseous from the anesthesia, so we had a plan in place to use the same meds that had worked during my October procedure for this one. Unfortunately the several hours after my surgery are completely lost to me. I am not sure what happened this time but I remember getting on the table in the operating room around 1:30 pm and then next time I was aware of time was after 8 pm that evening. I have no memory of getting to recovery, or my hospital room or the multiple hours into the evening after that.

I do remember waking up in incredible pain and being SO TIRED. I could not stay awake. I remember hearing the nurses ask Dominic if my reaction was typical after a surgery. They had me hooked up to a pain pump of Dilaudid. It gave me a pump of meds on a scheduled time, but I also had a pump that I could use to give myself an extra shot of meds if I needed it. I would use the meds and I was still in such terrible pain. I would wake up writhing in pain and fall back asleep and repeat. Finally I was awake enough that they were able to ask me if I could stay awake to try a pain pill of a different medicine and they would shut off the dilaudid. Apparently some people can have very negative reactions to that medicine and I guess I am that person! It did not bring me to a fun happy place! Once I was given a new medicine and it kicked in, everything changed. The pain was much more manageable. It wasn’t great, but it was manageable.

Interesting fun fact, I came home with rug-burn like sore spots on both of my elbows. I don’t know how I got them, except that in those first hours I must have been using my elbows to move myself and put so much pressure on them that I hurt them enough to rub them so raw that they eventually scabbed over! Ouch!!

I can’t speak highly enough of the nursing staff that helped me during my stay. I always try to be so grateful for everything that they do. I am sure that first several hours were difficult for them as they tried to figure out how to deal with my pain.

My Dr stopped in at some point, I couldn’t even tell you what day that was! She said that the surgery went just as expected. She was able to leave my one ovary so I will not have to be on hormones at this point. She said the ovary looked perfect so that was wonderful news! She removed the cervix and the uterus. She said that my uterus was “profoundly tipped.” I knew it was tipped, thus the reason I was unable to to do the in office biopsies, but she said it was almost twisted on itself. She hadn’t seen anything like that before. She said the way that it was positioned, it was no wonder I was having pain issues.

Hearing that report just reaffirmed that having this surgery was exactly what I needed to do. Not only did I remove any possible cancer risk, but hopefully any pain issues I was having should be gone once I am fully healed!

Typically with this type of surgery you only get an overnight stay. Crazy right?! I guess years ago it was 4-5 days, but with insurance these days it is now a single night. The test to be able to go home is the ability to pass gas. Again doesn’t this seem crazy to you?! It isn’t how your pain is managed, or if you can move around well etc…no if you can pass gas you go home. I don’t know if it was all the pain med mishap or if my digestive system is just slower than normal, but I wasn’t producing “results” like they needed so we ended up staying a second night at the hospital.

Honestly I was so grateful for this because the difference that I felt the evening I should have gone home and the next morning was so much different. The next morning I woke up and felt ready to take a shower and walk around a bit. So we were able to get checked out after the Dr. stopped by later that morning and were back in Marshall before dinner time.

I have lots more I want to share about my first few days at home, and some of the things that have been so helpful to me but this post has gotten SO LONG already!! So I will come back in a day or two and share some more then! Again, if you are considering this type of surgery please feel free to reach out. Everyone will have a different experience, but it was helpful for me in the beginning to be able to read a couple of first hand reports.

Updates and More

Quiet around these parts!

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I kind of feel like the tumbleweed is blowing across the pages of this blog lately! Thank you to those of you that continue to stick around even when I am only posting once or twice a month! I realize that this isn’t probably the right way to “grow” a blog…but I feel like this is a season that God has me in and my dreams in regards to this blog can be put on hold for awhile.

But I have been growing and challenged in new ways and wanted to share those with you a little…to explain my absence here! 🙂

First of all how is it that we are now less than 2 weeks away from the start of school? I am not sure where our summer went, but I am guessing the busyness we have had is in part, a bit of the reason I spend less time writing!

2 weeks ago we traveled to the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota for a wedding and a family vacation. This was a big deal as it was the first vacation that we planned for our family in 17 years! We have been on a few awesome vacations with my entire family, but the was the first we were able to afford on our own. It was glorious. We got to have both of our parents join us in the fun during the week, rented a beautiful house at the top of a “mountain” and just enjoyed being unplugged (as there was no WiFi available!)

I have a post I will share with more details – but it will be later this month!!

This past spring I signed up to be an Accountability Captain for a group of women as we walked through the book of John with the Hello Mornings group. It was so good to HAVE to be accountable. Apparently I need that when it comes to reading the Bible because if I am not accountable I make up excuses. Not good!

We had wonderful women in our group and I learned so much! But I found that if I really wanted to read and understand the verses I needed to spend adequate time doing so. I often would read 3 different translations (ESV, The Voice and The Message). Doing this gave me a better overall picture of what I was reading. It also took longer (not complaining) but I used to blog in the mornings before anyone else was up and this study took presidence over that!

As a result I was given the opportunity to be an ACE (Accountability Captain Encourager) for the upcoming fall session where we will be studying Ephesians!! I was so honored to ask and now will be praying for and helping 12 other AC’s who are leading their own groups. So again the blog takes a bit of a backseat. And that is ok.

I am finding though that if I want to be effective here, in sharing not only my story – but the love of God….I need to KNOW Him. And the only way to know Him is to spend time with Him, learning about Him. Hello Mornings has given me the push and the tools that I needed to do this.

I believe that eventually (at least I am really hopeful!!), as time permits, when I do share here it is done so in Truth and knowledge that only comes from spending time with God.

So there you have it. A bit of a run down on the past few months and a prayer for the upcoming as well. I do miss the community of beautiful women that stop by here though so know I am praying for you as well!