Re: To operate or not??

From: Wally (wallamara@hotmail.com)
Wed Jul 25 21:01:26 2001


At Wed, 25 Jul 2001, al wrote: >
>I realise that no-one can answer this question really.I am just very
>confused and it seems the more info i get the more confused i get. I
>have an appointment with the surgeon on the 8th of August. I can either
>go on the never ending roller coaster of tests that will probably show
>nothing or opt for another laparoscopy knowing that the more surgery i
>have the more adhesions i could get.

Hi Al

That's the dilemma we all face....do we keep risking further damage from additional adhesions or do we bite the bullet & go for it.

I know I have told you before about my own experiences, but for the benefit of the newbies here we go......

An appendectomy at the age of 18 and 4 C-Sections to deliver my four beautiful healthy daughters (Thank you Lord), helped create this huge mess inside of me. My health declined, pain increased periods a disaster....every two weeks for a week at a time.....

The pain became too hard to tolerate & my GP said time to look at the option of hystorectomy again.....so I visited a gyno, who didn't take any notice of my previous history & said yep lets do it!

So on 25 Feb 2000 I arrived at the hospital terrified and worried if I was doing the right thing.....the surgery took 5 1/2 hours and I woke up in agony. I required a blood transfusion because when he got in there he discovered that my uterus, bladder and abdominal wall were just one big mass.

Five days later I was convinced I was dying, my wound was leaking like a sinking ship & I couldn't move because of the extreme pain I was experiencing. After CT scans, x-rays etc they found a "small hernia" and decided to repair it. When the surgeon opened me up, my bowel had pushed through the muscle wall and the internal stitching had come undone. My hospital stay was 15 days and it was horrible.

I did not really recover from that surgery & complained about pain and pulling sensations from the time I had the second surgery. My bladder caused all sorts of problems & I required two further visits to the operating suite for a couple of procedures, one was to stretch my bladder. I was living on endone and determination mostly.

I visited a pain specialist who felt that I needed further investigations by a gyno. (The gyno who did my original surgery returned to Sydney, the gyno who assisted in my repair surgery refused to see me, he said I should be "fine". The new gyno said he felt that he needed to perform a laperoscopy to get a look inside & form a reasonable diagnosis, he told me he would cut any bands of adhesions he could while he was there. He did warn me that I still might require further surgery after the laperoscopy.

He was right! My ovaries were attached to my vagina, bladder, bowel & abdominal wall. Yes OUCH! What he found was massive adhesions which completely covered my ovaries, he didn't actually see them during the laperoscopy.

So on the 9 April this year, I had a laperotomy and my ovaries were removed and the surgeon removed as much of the scar tissue as he could. He said it was impossible to remove it all because some places were just "filled" with them and no longer visible.

Since that surgery my pain has changed, and I am now dealing with the effects of instant menopause on top of every thing else! I can move around a little better now, and I feel my recovery this time is better, however, I am not yet out of the woods so to speak.

I would recommend to EVERYONE to consider surgery carefully, making it the last available option. I know you are from somewhere in Sydney Alison, so I urge you to contact Professor Vancaillie and his team at the Royal Hospital for Women. I will be returning to their pelvic floor clinic in the very near future. Oh they also found endometriosis in the ovaries after they were removed.

I have reduced the amount of endone I take each day, and have been prescibed with other medication to help me cope with the pain. Walking is the most theraputic activity for me at the moment, I cannot sit for longer than an hour at any one time. I am back to doing light housework which has been exciting (Oh boy the things us ARD sufferers get excited about!) LOL, and I smile and laugh as much as possible, because that helps release the bodies natural morphine.....endorphins)

Well Al, LOL if you have managed to read yet another one of my mini novels, then you are doing well!

My hope is that one day a solution to our problem can be found.....without the need for surgery! Well one does have to be an optomist! :-)

Love, hugs & cheers, Jo

--
Try this!..........

Smile as often as you can at those you love..... and to strangers in the street.

The rewards are many.


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