Let’s see – over the last 10 years or so, I’ve had laparoscopic surgery 4 (I think) times for removal of endometriosis, adhesions, and scar tissue. I’ve also been on birth control pills and other hormonal treatments for most of my adult years – pretty much every type of BCPs along with a couple rounds of Lupron (drug of Satan, I swear) and Synarel (which was wonderful). The purpose of both Lupron and Synarel is to put your body into a chemically induced state of menopause in order to starve the endo and (theoretically) cause it to die off since it’s estrogen that feeds it. The BCPs level your hormones out so while it won’t cure the endo it can at least (theoretically) suppress the growth. The surgeries are, of course, to remove the endo and fix any other problems it has caused.
The funny thing about endo is that it’s not very predictable. Some people can have the worst stage of the disease with no symptoms at all and others can experience the worst pain with only a slight case of endometriosis. It’s graded by stages, with I being the least invasive and IV being the worst. I’ve watched mine progress through the years from a Stage I (diagnosed around age 25) to the worst case of Stage IV that my surgeon from last year had ever seen. Fortunately I’ve been one of the lucky ones for most of my life and have not been sidelined with any major pain or other issues normally associated with endometriosis. That is, until the last couple of years. But honestly, even then it hasn’t been so bad. Mainly a low grade chronic pain that was easily treated with the magical Motrin so often prescribed by the military docs…except it was starting to get to the point that the Motrin wasn’t working so well any longer and the bigger guns had to be pulled out.
At my last lap in April ’09 the military doctor I’d been seeing for eons (3 surgeries) finally mentioned the “h” word: Hysterectomy. Now you need to understand that I’d previously mentioned, even requested, a hysterectomy in the past but had been shot down over and over again due to the fact that I was so young, didn’t have children, blah blah blah. I found this insulting because they (several military docs) apparently believed that I wasn’t intelligent enough to know my own mind or have any real say in how this disease affecting MY body should be treated. Not to mention that I’ve known my whole life (well, since I was a teenager) that my kid(s) were in China and I never planned nor expected to have biological children. But I wasn’t ready last year because Ava had just turned 2 and I couldn’t fathom how I could handle her while recovering from that surgery. J was traveling quite a bit around this time and it just wasn’t do-able so I shelved the thought for a while.
Because the endo was sooooo bad the last time the doc put me on Synarel, which is a GnRH-a therapy, after surgery. This put me full square into menopause within a week of starting it…and I LOVED it. Very few migraines (compared to my normal 4-6 a month) and it was my first taste of NO pain, which made me realize how obnoxious that low grade, chronic pain really was. Unfortunately you can only take Synarel for 3-6 months as the side effects (bone loss and increased cholesterol amongst others) can be pretty nasty. But that pain free part? Sign me up because I was hooked. I finished the Synarel in August and the endo with associated pain was already coming back by the end of October.
But I was still pretty worried about the surgery itself and, more importantly, the recovery. Remember that toddler and all? So I needed to find the best and easiest way to do this which I already knew wouldn’t involve the military if I could help it. Since I’ve always maintained separate civilian health insurance I did some research, found the best surgeon in the area who utilized the DaVinci robotic assisted method, and made a phone call.
Except I couldn’t even get an appointment with him for nearly a year. I pled my case to the receptionist, who is also a fellow endo sufferer, and she back-doored me into a NP appointment who then referred me to the surgeon, scoring me an appointment in early December. And what a breath of fresh air he was.
I took all my records and formulated my arguments only to discover that I didn’t even really need them. He reviewed my records, did a physical exam, listened to me plead my case, and then agreed that a hysterectomy was certainly indicated based on all that he’d seen and heard from me. I told him that I wanted to do robotic assisted if at all possible (at this point his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree – apparently this is pretty cool to him when he gets to do it) and he simply asked me when I wanted to have it done.
“Mid-January, please.” I replied.
And that was it. I signed the paperwork, agreed on a January 14th surgery date, got my pre-op instructions, and pretty much went on my merry way. This made me happy since I could deal with the holiday stuff, celebrate our anniversary, and then go under the knife (or whatever the robot guy uses – I had a visual of laser beams shooting from his eyes but I’m pretty sure that’s just me being all sci-fi weird) before taking a few weeks to recover. The doc insists you commit to 4-6 weeks off, by the way, but I was convinced I’d be a superstar and would be totally recovered in 2 weeks or so.
All was planned well in advance: J was taking time off, the surgery was scheduled for early AM so we wouldn’t have to worry about finding someone to watch Ava, etc. Extra pajamas were purchased (in a larger size to account for the swelling) and everything was set…until I got the unexpected phone call that surgery was moved up to January 11th instead.
To be continued…
Please note that I’m back dating posts so this isn’t happening now. I’m all better (mostly) and am just now fleshing out my drafts and actually getting them posted. I blame Disney. I haven’t been blogging in the present since we got behind on that trip. Maybe someday I’ll be caught up.