Just this past the end of 2021, I chose hysterectomy because of multiple fibroids.
I lay in a panic for 8 months
I achieved the "White Shines" achievement
As early as 2011, during the company's physical examination, I knew that I had multiple uterine fibroids, almost all over the uterus.
The doctor said to me worriedly, "I am afraid that your womb will be difficult to conceive, and even if you are pregnant, it will be difficult to keep." Unbelievably, I traveled to several hospitals, but the doctors concluded that it was "difficult to get pregnant." For a moment, I was very sad.
At that time, I had been married for 4 years, although I was a social animal with a mortgage, but both parents urged me to have a child, so I began to prepare for pregnancy with the mood of trying it out. Fortunately, I was pregnant in the first month, but unfortunately, I don't know if it was natural survival of the fittest, or if I had the misfortune of catching a cold and fever when I found out that I was pregnant, and the embryos stopped developing, so I had to have an abortion.
After half a year of recuperation, I was lucky enough to get pregnant again a few months later. But due to too many fibroids, the placenta position is very undesirable, right at the mouth of the uterus. The doctor solemnly asked me to stay in bed from the first day I found out that I was pregnant, "If it was before liberation, you would have been in this situation."
So I lay on the ice for 8 months in horror, with the sword of Damocles bleeding heavily hanging over my head. I used to lie in bed and look at the blue sky outside, thinking to myself, Heaven is so good, when can I go out for a walk?! If there is any advantage to being bedridden, it is that I have achieved the achievement of "white to shine", and when I go to the operating table, the nurse next to me is exclaiming: "So white!" I'm embarrassed.
At 38 weeks and 4 days pregnant, I was finally able to have a caesarean section. Because it was a lumbar numbness, I was quite awake, and I only knew that the doctor operated on the stomach, but there was no pain. Then I heard the chief surgeon say, come and push it personally, and then say, another one. Finally, 3 doctors came up and pushed my stomach down from my chest. Only to hear the chief surgeon shout angrily: "I didn't eat breakfast!" Hard! "However, all 3 doctors failed and failed to squeeze out the child.
In the end, the doctor still used the forceps and forced the child out. When the baby comes out, the head is gourd-shaped, and there is a red forceps mark on the eyebrow. But these are not a problem, after 2 months the forceps are gone, and after 6 months, the baby's head is completely round.
After the operation, the doctor told me that because there were too many fibroids on the uterus and the elasticity of the uterus was very poor, it was difficult for the child to come out. The doctor dug up 2 tennis ball-sized fibroids during the operation, and there were many other small fibroids, because the uterine blood transport during pregnancy was too rich, and my uterus was not very contracted well, afraid of bleeding too much, I did not deal with it first, and then I had to review it regularly.
The doctor said, wait for what?
Dragging it around, it still has to be done in the end
Time flies after the operation, and the uterine fibroids are always there. It was okay at first, they didn't affect my life at all. But by the year before, one of the fibroids had grown to 5 centimeters in diameter and began to affect menstrual flow.
At that time, I was very difficult during the menstrual holidays, and the amount of menstruation was so large that I was extremely troubled by travel. I remember one time when the traffic jam was delayed a little longer, and the blood stained the entire seat red, and I was very embarrassed. At that time, even if I used oversized tampons and night sanitary napkins, I still had to change them every hour. Later upgraded to a menstrual cup, I counted, 32 ml of menstrual cups can have 9 cups a day, that is to say, the amount of a day is about 3 times that of a normal menstrual period.
With the increase in menstrual flow, the dysmenorrhea is also getting heavier. Although I have not yet reached the point of bed rest and 120, I am also in pain so that I cannot exercise at all, and I can only rely on taking ibuprofen on time to basically live and work normally.
But gradually, Ibuprofen was no longer able to relieve my symptoms. In addition to the discomfort when the menstrual leave came, 3 to 4 days before the menstrual holiday, I began to have a painful lower abdomen, full of stool, and I also needed to take ibuprofen to relieve the symptoms. When the stomach pain is severe, it is also necessary to take special medicine to relieve the spasms. Later, I felt life-threatening pain even during ovulation and needed to eat ibuprofen.
I've tried various mitigations, such as taking short-acting contraceptives, but the effects were not obvious. I also tried putting in a hormone-containing IUD to reduce menstrual flow, and when I put it on, the doctor thought that my uterus was a bit large and might fall out. Sure enough, the birth control device was gone when the review was reviewed, and the two thousand yuan was gone without even hearing a ring, and when it fell was completely unknown.
After trying a variety of methods, I had to face the final plan of surgical removal of fibroids. In July last year, the biggest fibroids had grown to 7 centimeters, and combined with my series of symptoms, the doctor recommended immediate surgery. But I wanted to struggle a little longer and asked the doctor if he could delay any longer. The doctor said, wait for what? Dragging it around, it still has to be done in the end.
The uterus, intestines and peritoneum stick together
Minimally invasive surgery to open the abdomen
Then grit your teeth and do the surgery.
What surgery is done? Do you just remove fibroids or simply remove the uterus? The doctor told me that because I have a lot of fibroids, if I choose to keep the uterus and only remove the fibroids, it cannot be done with minimal trauma, and I must open my abdomen. On the contrary, if the uterus is removed, minimally invasive can be completed.
Considering that my uterine fibroids grow a lot fast, and the distance from menopause is really a bit far, it is difficult to say that it will not be longer if only the fibroids are removed. Most critically, since I also have endometriosis, I will most likely still have dysmenorrhea after removing the fibroids. Since I have no fertility needs at all, let's opt for hysterectomy.
At 9 a.m., I took off my glasses and was pushed into the operating room, and I could only see a personal silhouette walking around in front of me, highly myopic. One by one, the patients waiting next to me were pushed into the operating room, leaving me alone. Unable to go to the toilet and drink water, look at my phone, or see the TV and clock on the wall, I completely lost the concept of time. So when I was finally pushed into the operating room, I was still a little excited.
There were many doctors in the operating room, and after confirming the information, the anesthesiologist put on a breathing mask for me, and the memory was broken.
When you regain consciousness, the first feeling is pain! Very painful! My pain threshold was very low, and I was still in tears after the caesarean section with an analgesic pump. This time it felt the same way, and then a wave of nausea came up, and I couldn't say anything at all, only to raise my hand.
It was a big awakening center, probably with dozens of beds, a dozen patients. I didn't hold back until my medical uncle rushed over to stuff the vomit towel, and I vomited on the side of my head.
When my medical uncle pushed me through a transparent canopy corridor back to the ward, I suddenly realized that it was dark.
Later, I learned that the operation was done from 11 a.m. to about 4 p.m., and then to the wake-up center for more than an hour, and it was of course dark when I returned to the ward.
Night view outside the ward | Courtesy of the author
The operation time is so long, mainly because during minimally invasive surgery, the doctor found that the adhesions were very serious, and the surgical field of vision was exposed under laparoscopy, so he had to turn away from abdominal surgery.
Later, the doctor told me about the operation, my uterus was as big as 5 months pregnant, the intestines, uterus and surrounding peritoneum were adhesion, and there were cysts on both sides of the ovaries. So my surgery took longer and the incision was larger. After removing the stitches, I compared it, and the knife scar was about 17 centimeters long, which felt longer than the cross-cutting knife scar of the cesarean section.
Surgical records | Courtesy of the author
Hormonal fluctuations can still be felt
There are also still normal physiological needs
It has been two months since the operation. My wound, though long, is recovering well and has moved unhindered.
I can still feel the fluctuations in hormone levels in my body, I still have a few acne in the next menstrual cycle, and I still have a slight swelling and intestinal cramps in my lower abdomen, but I don't need ibuprofen anymore. Normal physiological needs are still there, and there is no desire for nothing. I no longer have to worry about uterine lesions and save money on sanitary napkins.
The very amazing thing is that I was diagnosed with high blood pressure a year before surgery and have been taking medication regularly. At one point, the postoperative blood pressure fell below 90/50 mm Hg, which I suspect was caused by excessive blood loss. But now two months have passed, my blood pressure has returned to 120/80 mmHg, and I have not taken antihypertensive drugs again. When the re-examination, the doctors all feel magical, perhaps the uterus is too much pressure on the blood vessels to affect the blood pressure, and the blood pressure returns to normal after hysterectomy, which is really an unexpected gain.
Hysterectomy is really a very personal choice. My patient in the same ward during my hospitalization, 40 years old, with both children and daughters. She has had 2 surgeries for multiple uterine fibroids, but she just can't accept that she has one less organ and still insists on not removing the uterus.
But in my opinion, after the hysterectomy, I no longer have to worry about the embarrassment of excessive menstrual bleeding, and I no longer need to have ibuprofen around, I can exercise freely every day of the month, and there is no "frigidity". As for the problem that some people worry about accelerating aging after hysterectomy, in the words of doctors, "as long as the ovaries have a layer of skin, there is no need to worry about hormone secretion, and there is no worry about accelerating aging."
Life is short, so why endure "heavy bleeding" and dysmenorrhea? Why not enjoy every day?
Sharing personal experience does not constitute a diagnosis and treatment recommendation, can not replace the doctor's individual judgment of a specific patient, if you need to go to a regular hospital.
Author: Epco's Translation Dog
Editors: Zheng Xiaoyi, Dai Tianyi
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