Week ten - Total adominal Hysterectomy part 6

Tenth week – well I cant believe how quickly time has flown – I am so bored just being stuck at home and cant wait to get back to work. Today I saw my doctor and have been given the OK to go back to work. Obviously I will be take it a bit easier, my body will tell me if I push things too far.
I must say that the whole experience so far has been OK apart from the scare I had on the second week. However, don't forget I haven't had to take care of anyone else as I have been lucky to have 24/7 support from my husband. I have managed to read quite a few books on all types of Hysterectomy including my own total adominal Hysterectomy and will list my recommendations here soon.

How to recover from a total adominal hysterectomy part 5

Third week – This week I started to do more exercise and planned to do two walks a day one walk in the morning lasting 15 minutes and one in the afternoon lasting 20 minutes. By evening I felt quite tired but wasn't in any pain whatsoever. My scar was healing well and beginning to turn red. I forgot to mention that I didn't shower in the first and second week I was paranoid that I might get Scar wet and get an infection. Obviously I had a wash down every morning.

Fourth week – this week I was beginning to get back to my normal self. Although my husband had to keep reminding me not to do too much So I ended up spending most of the week watching TV in between doing my daily walks, which now amounted to about 50 minutes a day.

Fifth week – as you can gather so far so good and this was the week that I started to say to myself I want to get back to work. My daily walks was now up to one hour a day. My energy levels were good, and I noticed that I was beginning to put weight back on. In my first and second week I noticed that I had lost quite a bit of weight but now I was almost back to normal. Not a great deal to report and to be honest This whole experience is beginning to sound quite boring, but then again maybe that's a good thing. I had herd so many bad stories about having a total hysterectomy that maybe it's good to hear a story like this one, so I will continue.

Six-week – this week I went to the doctors mostly just to obtain a sick leave note for my job. When I was at the hospital having my operation the nurse had told me that total abdominal hysterectomy patients, no longer had to have six week review examination unless they had complications. The whole experience at the doctors was quiet a none event he just ask me how I felt. When I told him that I felt good and wanted to get back to work as soon as possible. He said that instead of signing me off for another six weeks he would only sign me off for four weeks. At the end of four weeks he said I might be able to return to work as long as there were no heavy lifting involved. I left the doctors feeling quite positive but was quite surprised that he didn't examine me, but then again I had no complications so why should he. Obviously this is all part of saving money for the national health service, to be quite frank its probably right thing to do. One last thing to mention I made love this week and everything works!

recovery procedure from a hysterectomy - Part 4

First week – I spent the first week in bed all I did was read books and magazines. I had a slight pinching type of pain for the most of the week apart from that everything was fine. It is worth noting that I believe it is essential that you have someone with you, as you are pretty helpless for the first week, I was lucky as my husband works from home so I had 24 hour support. While I was in bed I spent a lot of time doing the exercises that the hospital had recommended. This mainly consisted of the following exercises: Knee rolling, knee bends, pelvic tilting, and pelvic floor muscle exercise.

The second week – things changed drastically on the second week. I started to feel quite sick and half way through the night I started to vomit violently and my whole body was shaking. My husband tried to contact the hospital where I had the operation but was unable to get an answer so he then contacted our local GP and was advised to take me to a local hospital. Getting to the hospital was quite a nightmare I was consistently being sick in the car. Luckily when we arrived at the hospital I was seen to straight away, to be honest at one stage I thought I was going to die. Apparently my body had gone into shock and was told that this was quite common after an operation. I was given a thorough examination by the doctor I was quite surprised to find that my temperature was normal and my blood pressure was normal. I finally stop being sick and felt a lot better The doctor prescribed a number of drugs for sickness,heartburn and constipation He did say that being constipated could have been the main reason that my body went into shock. The good news was that I was allowed to go home and the whole experience only lasted about three hours. I spent the next 48 hours sleeping and afterwards I felt a lot better.

recovery procedure from a hysterectomy - Part 3

Day off the operation - I had to call the hospital an hour before my appointment to confirm that my bed was available and it was.I got to the hospital at 11 oclock and my operation took place at 4.30 I cant remember coming around in the recovery room. My husband rung the hospital and they told him that I would be back in my ward at 7.45,visiting hours stopped at 8. He managed to get there on time, but obviously I cant remember much about it. The following day the nurse monitored me every 30 minutes the only problem was that I had a high temperature so they opened the window! I had an oxygen mask fitted, a drain from my tummy, a drip in my arm for pain which I think was morphine and a catheter. I felt very weak but wasn't in a lot of pain. The good news was that I didn't have to have my ovaries taken out. I had a total abdominal hysterectomy and my incision was vertical all the way up to my to my belly button. I had tape over each stitch and I counted 22 of them. On the second day I felt a lot better and too my amazement the doctor said that I could go home within 24 hours. Also on this day the nurse removed the drain from my tummy and it hurt, this was the worse part of my whole stay in hospital, felt like someone was pulling my intestines out! On the 3rd day I was allowed to go home..........to be continued

recovery procedure from a hysterectomy - Part 2

Hospital appointment with consultant 8th January -Consultant asked about my medical history. Then she examined me even though at the time I had my period so it was a little bit embarrassing. After the examination she confirmed that I had a large fibroid she asked if anyone else in my family had fibroids I told her my sister did. It appeared that this made up her mind to perform a operation. We then discussed the various operations and she concluded that I should have a total abdominal hysterectomy. She explained that It was a possibility that my ovaries may be removed but this decision would be made during surgery. I signed all the consent forms and was told that I would have to come into hospital a week before the operation for a pre assessment .


27th January hospital pre assessment -This consisted of seeing a nurse about any medication I was on, another nurse to weigh me, take my blood pressure, medical history, and then another two nurse's about preparing for the operation and what I need to take with me to the hospital, oh yes they also measured me up for surgical stockings. They also confirmed that my operation would take place on Wednesday the 4th February.