Edna Update
If you don’t like talk about female parts, you might want to go here.
Okay, I’m waiting.
Good. Here we go. It’s been a little less than three months since the hysterectomy. (Ednaectomy if you have been following this blog for awhile.)
Here’s what I have learned and so I thought I’d share.
First of all, I made the mistake to go back to work too early. I also have realized that I was a hell of a lot sicker than I even knew and now that I’m feeling better it amazes me how bad I actually felt. So, if anyone who is reading this who has a hystie in their future, take the time to heal. My other mistake was to think I had to be strong during the weeks before the surgery, the actual surgery and the healing. I think my Ego got in front of being rational to a degree.
Second of all, I’ve always been the kind of person that if you are sick, you wait it out and get back to work by golly because that’s being plucky. But the thing is, that there are changes in your body. I tried to do the same things I had always done right about three weeks after surgery. I’m paying for that now and what I mean is that the tireds have hit and I think a lot of that has to come from doing the Mary Sunshine thing combined with having an organ removed. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve knocked out a lot of being Mary friggin’ Sunshine because it wasn’t always conducive for my mental health or others for that matter. I believe a lot of that has to do with getting back into the swing of things when I wasn’t truly ready to. I have an employee who just had a baby and Homer has plopped a couple of kids out, and she said it takes time for the body to get back into some sort of normalcy. Never having had kids, I can only imagine that that is true and the hystie is the only thing I have a reference point to.
Third of all, being that I had a partial, I find I still have some of the symptoms of Aunt Flo coming to visit once a month but that is SO much better now that I can’t even begin to explain. On the other hand, my body had Edna for 40 years. Sometimes I think my body and I have a conversation that goes like this:
Body: “Hey.”
Brain: “What do you want?”
Body: “Have you seen Edna? You know that cranky uterus that used to hang out here. I can’t seem to locate her.”
Brain: “She’s gone.”
Body: “Well, damn. I keep getting her mail. Where’d she go?”
Brain: “Would you shut up. We’ve gone through this.”
Body: “Yeah, you’re right but I just sort of feel like something is missing.”
Brain: (in a moment of clarity) “Me too.”
A couple of the fine women who come to this blog told me it would take about a year to get back in fighting shape. They were right on the money there. I’ve been very fortunate that I haven’t put on any additional weight and that’s of the good. The other thing I’ve experienced is after Edna left this world, that my body is making adjustments. So I’ve been trying to take better care of myself (I’m terrible at that. Health conscious, I ain’t.) I realized I hadn’t really taken any alone time. I like being alone (and it’s much different than being lonely but at the commune, there usually is a great deal of activity) and I think that is part of the mental health thing that everyone needs. My brain sometimes gets crazy anyway and being that I figure I probably suffer from a bit of Seasonal Affective Disorder it’s good to get my thoughts in order.
Most women I know will say one of two things after this kind of surgery. “I haven’t had any problems” or “It was horrible. It took me forever to get over it.”
I haven’t really had either of those things. It wasn’t really hard to get over the hystie (the bladder sling was pretty bad), but it has been challenging to deal with my body making adjustments. So I’m trying to take care of that. I’m not going out as much, prefering to stay at home. I like socializing a lot, but on the other hand, it’s not always the best thing when going through the healing. Granted, I’m still not up to doing the Hokey-Pokey (cause that’s what its all about.)
So here are some rambling thoughts. I’m fine. Tired sometimes but fine. If you’ve never gone through this, it is a big deal. If your going to go through it, take care of yourself. And if you have gone through it, I’d love to hear your experiences with it.
Photo taken last weekend in the bathroom of P & H Cafe, Memphis.
But I like to read about female parts AND see kitties. Where’s that leave me? HUH?! HUH?
Heh.
Seriously, I’m so glad you’re feeling better. I often feel guilty about my frighteningly uneventful recuperation (I took six weeks’ leave, but it was the height of the second-best nothing-happening season for us and everybody was thankful for the peace and quiet at work from my mouth), but it has been weird sometimes. (Including the wound thingy that now makes me Frankenstein with cadaver skin, wooooooooo.) Last night, for example, for no reason, I was just about hysterical with exhaustion and hunger and all-over-flu-like soreness by the time I got home, and for no discernible reason. It wasn’t an unusually difficult day, except I didn’t get over to the gym as planned. I took a handful of Aleve and got in the bed, and it helped a lot. And now i wonder if it wasn’t related to my own ednaectomy, because it’s happened two other times since the surgery six months ago. And, much like you, I didn’t realize how awful I felt for all these years until I wasn’t feeling that way anymore. Last night’s ack-ick-blah was like a small reminder of those years.
You’re exactly right about the alone time, too. I think it’s the brain’s way of saying, “Dude, you just had stuff taken out. Stuff that has affected me all these years. I say you sit and just ponder the cosmos a while without everybody in your face.”
Like you, every person who’s talked to me about theirs has said it was the best thing that ever happened to them. It seems that every woman on my mother’s side of the family has either barely and silently survived years of horrid suffering or had her own ednaectomy at a relatively young age and gone about rejoicing. I’m-a tellya, I can vouch for the rejoicing, after 32 years (yes!) of this sh*t and being repeatedly ignored or told to shut up and take the Pill because all fat chicks should, to have found two doctors that said, “Jeebus! Nobody’s ever done an ultrasound or a biopsy? Honey! Get in here! JEEBUS! Look at that thing! Let’s make your appointment!”
Having to have the full field-dressed edition was the scariest part for me because of the healing risks. I fought for laparascopic and lost. But it all turned out okay. In fact, my docs have said I’m their little poster girl for happy recovery.
I hope you contine to be a poster girl for contented recovery, too, doll. Please please please take time for yourself. (If I could send you the trainer’s workout for me that pulls all my stress right into them lurvely machines and makes me a big floppy sleepy de-stressed noodle, I will.)
And I’m sorry for hijacking your blog. I need to send you a check for bandwidth, too.
Kiss everybody for me. SMOOCH!
P.S.. — I love anybody who writes Oscar Wilde graffiti in a bathroom.
Smooch back at you.
I think I have a touch of a virus today which is unrelated to Edna but I find that I have been profoundly changed by the operation, mainly for the good.
But change is still change and sometimes my body and brain have conferences with each other saying “Whoa.”
Hijack away. I’m glad you shared. You know, we as women can be each other’s support system on this. I know you guys have helped me through it immensely.
I loved the body/brain dialogue.. oh so true.
Continue to heal!
I’ve spent the last 3 or 4 days wondering if I shouldn’t just give up on the idea of bearing my own children and carve the damn thing out with a spoon. Posts like this give me hope in LifeAfterUterus.
When the day comes that a doctor says “Sista…it’s time for us to remove that thing”, I will say “fine.” I will have no problem with resting for however long they say I must and I will look forward to the pain medication and my husband being forced to wait on me. I won’t miss the feminine hygiene aisle not one bit.
Having had three kids, this thing that it takes 6 weeks to recover after a baby is ka ka. Oddly enough, it’s about a year before you feel like yourself again. Least thats how it was for me.
My mother has always praised the day and the good Lord for the day hers came out. My dad always said that was a great day, too. Hee.
See, that’s what Homer said about having a baby. She said she was fine in a few days but it took her about a year to start feeling her “normal” self again.
I think it’s the same with a hystie.
Wow, I didn’t realize that you were a hystersister! It has been a long road of recovery for me, as well. I had mine on July 24th. I did 2 posts back then about my experience. Rather than co-hijack your blog along with grandeflll, here are their links: http://gingge.blogspot.com/2006/08/hysteria.html &
http://gingge.blogspot.com/2006/08/hysteria-part-2-insomia-healing.html Perhaps they can give some insight on my deal. Anyway, I feel like a new person and just like you didn’t realize how horrible my health was until I got on the other side of my hyst. I have still had a few days where I could sleep 12 hours with a problem…your body gets worn down easier. My doc also said it would take about a year to get 100% back. It definitely puts you through some major change. Are you having to take hormones? Any hot flashes? Those are soooo fun…heh.
No hormones but sometimes I sweat my hiney off.
I used to have hot flashes BEFORE this happened, so that’s not anything new to me. (I’m hot-natured anyway; I can wear a sweater and gloves when it’s down in the teens and not even notice.) Haven’t had to have hormones, because I’ve still got one ovary (poor lonesome thing) … still have an estrogen overdose in this extra weight, too, so docs have joked that I’m my own pharmacy while I’m losing it. Hee.
I just don’t understand why I still have to have a pap smear every year. Eew.
[...] kids but if I did I would be a saint. (Yeah, the plumbing is gone.) I had the infamous Ednaectomy. Go here if you are so inclined. Or go look at this [...]