Surgical pictures from the hysterectomy: Warning not for the weak stomach!

Don't wait until it's too late!

Hello faithful followers!  Sorry its been a while since I have posted on here.  Life surely knows how to throw one a curve ball from time to time doesn't it?

I want to tell everyone of you and I want you to pass this along to as many as you can, Don't wait until it's too late, make your voice heard, force people to listen to you when you have a problem.

Here is my story: 

In 2005 I went to the doctor because I was having pain in my lower left pelvic area.  They ran all sorts of tests on me, from internal and external ultrasounds, to MRI's and CT scans, and even the X-ray.  All of the scans came back saying that I had a 2cm cyst on my left ovary.  My doctor said that it was nothing to worry about and that women live with cysts larger than that for many years of their life, so he didn't want to do anything about it.  A year later I found another doctor to address my concerns (crappy insurance left me to have to do this or I would have done it right away).  This doctor told me basically the same thing.  Said that it was nothing to worry about and that I should even be able to pass it in a cycle.  I addressed the concern about my irregular cycles and it was explained to me that I might be going through the change earlier than most women.  My cycles at this point were coming once every 2 or 3 months.

After hearing from 2 doctors the same thing, I felt that I was just going to have to learn to deal with the pain.  I didn't give up completely though, I had seen at least another 4 more doctors within the next 4 years after this.

In late 2010, this was the year that so much was happening for me.  All of a sudden I was hit hard by a terrible cycle.  The cycle lasted 4 full weeks, and I was easily going through a box of tampons every 2 days.  I had enough!  I went to the emergency room.  Found out the cyst that I had on my left ovary had actually ruptured!  I also found out that due to this I was anemic.  So, that left me to have to get a blood transfusion.  The doctors put me on provera in hopes that it would stop me from bleeding, and it did.  I was also told that I had to take an iron pill from now on to combat the anemia.  Upon further exam, they found that the cyst was no longer there.  My cycles became even more irregular, sometimes coming as soon as 10 days after the last one ended to going 45 days before it would come again.

I was happy, just had finally found what love was, we were in the process of settling down with each other, talking about having kids and our future.  In February 2011, the unthinkable happened!  I had a miscarriage at 10 weeks!  I didn't even know I was pregnant.  This was devastating to both my husband (then fiancee) and I.  We strived to move past it and we did.

In March of 2011, I started having pain that no one could imagine.  So, immediately we went to the emergency room.  Upon exam they found that I had developed another cyst.  Again, it was only 2cm and they said that they couldn't do anything about it and sent me on my way.  At this point it had been 6 weeks since I had a cycle.  With the miscarriage only 8 weeks prior, I was scared that it could have been happening again since I had taken tests and either they came back with faint lines or there would be an error on others.  So a week after that emergency room visit, I had to be rushed back again because of the pain.  Still just a cyst on my left ovary only 2cm.

My hunt for a specialist began!  Every specialist that I called had a waiting list a mile long!  So, I gave up for a while.  We continued to try to have a baby, even using fertility treatments thinking that would help us out due to the cyst could have made it to where I wasn't ovulating properly.

We moved into our new home in August.  I was feeling a lot of pain, just like I was back in March.  So as I was unpacking boxes and putting together the house, I had the television on.  The Dr. Oz show came on.  It was the episode about Ovarian Cancer:  spotting the signs and getting the medical professionals to listen to you.  Dr. Oz had went into an area where he helped women get tested.  There was this one girl on the show though that really hit home with me.  She had found out through being a part of this show that she had something to be concerned about.  Dr. Oz said that there would be a worksheet on his website to help women find a way to discuss with their doctor their concerns about possibly having ovarian cancer.  I went and looked at the form and answered yes to everything that was on there!  It scared the crap out of me!  I have a high risk of cancer anyways since my younger brother died in 2002 of Ewing's Sarcoma (rare bone cancer) and many of my aunts and cousins have had female cancers and my own grandmother died of female cancers the year I was born.

My husband and I painstackenly looked around for a doctor.  Finally we had found one that could see us within the week.  This was the end of September 2011.  She ordered tests (internal and external ultrasound).  Scheduled surgery just from the hospital report from earlier in the year.  Then the tests came back showing there was nothing!  I was shocked! The surgery date was set for October 12th, 2011.  "If she scheduled surgery, there must have been a reason" is what I was thinking.  She had went over the options with me.  I could have a Mirena IUD placed in me to possibly help (she was thinking that it was just endometriosis), she could go in and explore to see what was wrong and then schedule full surgery after she knew what was wrong, or I could opt for a full hysterectomy. 

Hard decisions to make!  Did I want to be treated like a science experiment?  NO!  Have I already tried birth control for the issue?  YES!  Did it work?  NO!  Could I live with knowing I couldn't have anymore kids?  I WASN'T SURE!  Could I live knowing that I wasn't in anymore pain and could do the things like I used to be able to do?  YES!  So, it was time to weigh the options with the husband.  He knew that I had tried everything.  Both of us agreed that me being a science experiment wasn't in our best interests, just because of how long it would take to get better from one surgery then to have to turn around and have another, cost wise it wasn't practical.  So, we weighed heavily on having the hysterectomy.  Many tears were shed, but we agreed, it was the only logical option.

So, we went to visit the doctor the day before surgery and told her that we had chosen to go the route of having the hysterectomy.  She went over everything with us.  She said that because she knew the left ovary was the cause of the pain, she was going to remove that, my uterus, cervix and my tubes.  She told us though that she wanted to leave the right ovary (only if it looked healthy when she was in there) so I could produce hormones.  We were OK with this.

October 12th, 2011 came rolling along.  Surgery was scheduled for 1130 am EST.  I was in the operating room just shortly after 11am.  I remember very little from the O.R.  I remember being told by the anathesiologist that I would feel a burning sensation.  I remember saying hello to the doctor and telling her I was scared, hearing her say it was normal, saying I felt the burning sensation and that was it!  The next thing that I remember is being in the recovery room.  I remember sitting straight up from the bed and screaming at the top of my lungs asking if my husband knew that I made it through the surgery, and then crashing back onto the bed.  It was only later that night after I had been in my room for a little while and my husband had left to grab us some dinner that I was told that I was dead for 2 minutes in the recovery room and that I didn't need the paddles to bring me to life, I came back once they put oxygen on me.  I had no pulse and wasn't breathing for 2 whole minutes!  I was released from the hospital the following morning.  I felt pretty good.  Sore, but nothing like the pain that I was in previously.

The following Monday the doctor had called me and she had the news of the biopsy report.  She said that I made the right call to have the full hysterectomy even though she was reluctant to do the surgery on my as I had requested.  I asked her why she said I was right in my decision.  She said because the biopsy report showed that in my uterus I had a tumor that was the size of a clenched female fist (about 4 inches or 10.16cm) and it didn't show up in the scans because it masked itself as the uterus.  My entire uterus was one giant tumor!  She said that upon further review of the biopsy, it came back with pre-cancerous cells and that if I hadn't have had the surgery when I did it would have developed into full blown uterine cancer, ovarian cancer and cervical cancer within 6 months to a year.  She said that the results of all the blood that was taken of me after surgery (every 2 hours they were drawing blood from me), I was also no longer anemic and there were no signs of any cancer cells anywhere in my blood stream!

Tomorrow will be 30 days since my surgery, and I have never felt better in my life!  Its weird being pain free, its even more weird because it has given me an outlook of going out there and doing good in the world and having others feel the happiness I feel inside.

So please, if you have pain or you know someone who has pain share this with them.  Don't live with the pain, don't let doctors tell you that its all psychological and that you don't know what you are talking about.  Get a second opinion, third opinion or 12th opinion if you have to!  Eventually someone will listen to you!  Remember, you know your body better than what the doctors do.  So if it doesn't feel right, make your voice heard, do something about it, don't feel ashamed, and don't hide in the shadows!