counting down

Hi Dreamer glad all went well and you are on the road to recovery. Take care and thanks for the update x

So I'm now 7 days post-surgery - I think, as I'm losing track of the time! Coming home on Saturday afternoon I pretty much slept (very fitfully) for Sunday and Monday, feeling very sorry for myself as I just could not get comfortable. No pain really, but I usually sleep curled up on my side and I could feel everything pulling if I so much as rolled over slightly so had to try sleeping on my back.. When I was up I was surprised at how relatively pain-free the stitch sites  felt although I did take some pain relief. Tuesday and Wednesday I still felt really tired and achy - couldn't sit, couldn't stand, couldn't lie down. I kept trying to do small walks round the house but also felt nauseous and shivery, and couldn't stop weeing! Then last night (Wednesday) I had a sudden gush of blood (sorry - probably TMI) and almost like a period cramp, which was odd as I had had very little bleeding up till then. Amazingly, apart from a couple of bathroom visits I had a really good night's sleep and feel  so much better today. I even managed a little bit of kitchen-tidying and folded some laundry but I did have a nap after lunch. I feel less bloated too and much more alert. I have to say I wasn't prepared for the amount of bruising across my poor old tum, and it's hard to find a site for the blood-thinning injections. I'm also not convinced you will see my surgeon on the Great British Sewing Bee any time soon. The bikini-line cut is very neat (although I haven't worn a bikini in many, many years) but the laparoscopic ones are not so good but I think they will settle down in time - not that I care that much. I actually had my gall-bladder removed 25 years ago by keyhole surgery and you can't even see where they were. Just waiting now for the histology results and hoping they come back, good or bad, before Christmas. Also think some of this will hit me mentally/emotionally in the coming weeks as I haven't had a lot of time to think about it all as it happened so fast. Also have to remember that the myasthenia can cause fatigue, especially when stressed, so must be mindful of that too. And then, all being well, eye surgery in March/April but that is a day surgery thing under local anaesthetic so hopefully will go smoothly. It was quite funny though "air-drying" the stitches lying on my bed. I live in a bungalow with the bedroom at the front but slightly lower than the street (and with a front garden). I have louvre blinds on the bottom part of the window but the top part is clear. Not to worry, I thought, it's not the day for the window-cleaner so I am laying there in all my glory, holding up the "over-hang" and must have dozed off a bit but was brought round suddenly by a lorry parked up outside ready to pick up a building skip from the house opposite, and the driver standing on the back of his truck. Luckily he was facing the opposite way so I quickly (well, very gingerly) rolled off the bed and fled to the bathroom! 

Hello dreamer

Oh my gosh you do make me chuckle! Love the bit about you laying there holding on to your overhang! LoL!

I like yourself was very uncomfortable lying on my back first few days after surgery as I'm usually a side sleeper but after about a week I found I could manage sleeping on one side only. I'm unsure about losing the clot of blood is this normal? I didn't lose any blood but about a week later I started losing a lot of watery fluid and had to go back to see the surgeon who tested it and said it was lymphatic drainage and that it would stop. It sometimes gushed out ! I had to wear incontinence pads until it stopped....about three weeks later. 

Hopefully like you said the histology results will be in soon and then you can start planning  your life as now you must feel in limbo.

I too had eye laser surgery after my chemo ended so had lots going on. I'm glad it's over now I'll just need to be monitored every three months!

Hopefully you can continue to improve every day just take it easy but try to get out for short walks every day if possible. You'll be surprised how good it makes you feel. Wrap up warm though. Take care xx

Thanks Mad, I do like to see the funnier side of things if I can. It wasn't a blood clot  - just a sudden gush and seems to have settled down now. Although I had been going to the toilet fairly normally, I think there was just some congestion/swelling inside and again, that seems to be easing now. I reread the hospital discharge notes and saw they performed an adhesiolysis. Not sure if that is normal procedure but there were several large fibroids as well as the cancer so wonder if the uterus had been pushed against the bladder/bowels and formed adhesions. Anyway, everything feels a lot more comfortable now I am more mobile. Walked round to the little shop near me yesterday - 2 minutes on a good day as it's that close but I took it slowly and used my walking stick for confidence -  only bought 2 pints of milk which I carried in a shoulder bag. Will try the longer way round today. 

Hi dreamer, sorry to butt in, but just wanted to say that though it’s great that you felt able to go to the corner shop, I’d say that carrying two pints of milk is probably overdoing it a bit and a bit too much for less than two weeks post surgery. The rule of thumb that I was given and also have seen on here is lifting nothing heavier than a mug of coffee. And stuck to that for several weeks after. So I’d advise sticking to one pint at a time for the moment. You’re not only protecting your inner stitches but also protecting against a prolapse.

Not butting at all - just giving some well-meant advice., thankyou. I didn't think it was a problem as I carried it in a shoulder bag across my body so the weight was well-distributed away from my abdomen but I will give things a bit more thought. I guess there's a danger of overdoing it when you "feel" sp much better.

Hi again dreamer, that’s exactly the danger time unfortunately, when we start to feel so much better. I’m obviously not medical, but my understanding is that we have the omentum removed as well when we have a hysterectomy, and that’s quite high up. In the early days I can remember having tenderness under and between my lower ribs so presume there’s some internal stitching up there and that area bears quite a lot of strain due to gravity and our uterus not being there any more to hold our innards in place, if you get what I mean!  I’d gently increase the gentle walking if you, but hold off on any carrying or lifting heavier than a mug of tea. I even kept a small jug by the kettle so I wasn’t lifting that to and from the tap or overfilling it. Amanda 

Hi marmite,

I'm not sure the omentum is taken as standard during a hysterectomy. Just from personal experience when I had my results after hysterectomy they thought I might have cancer spread to there and lymph nodes. They mentioned taking away the omentum at the next surgery but this was reduced to biopsy as apparently it would have made me feel very sick.

Hope you are keeping well,

A x

Hi sistermoon, that’s interesting thank you, I’m pretty sure they took mine but will check! I certainly had tenderness up there post surgery 

Thanks Marmite and Sistermoon - definitely won't push things too far. I do the jug to kettle thing too and I have a grabby stick to pick things up off the floor - only very light stuff like tissues and socks - everything else stays where it is until a visitor calls. I had a lot of tenderness under my lower ribs before the operation which the Macmillan nurse suggested might be the enlarged uterus displacing things a bit, but then again it could be due to muscle weakness because of the myasthenia as other fellow sufferers report similar things. And then again, it could be because I am overweight!