After my third child was born, I decided that three kids was enough and made arrangements to have a tubal ligation to prevent any further pregnancies. I was lucky to have a doctor who was easy to talk to; some women are not so lucky and often their doctors are too busy to answer their many questions.
Ten years after my sterilization surgery I began experiencing the onset of terrible pelvic pain. My menstrual cycles became very heavy and would last for two weeks or longer. My doctor tried several different treatments to try to ease the pain and regulate my cycles. The treatments would work, initially, but then within three months the pain and heavy bleeding would return. My doctor was doing everything possible to keep me from having to have major surgery; she was exploring all the options before she made that suggestion.
About two years after the excessive pain began and all the treatments had failed, my doctor finally suggested that I have a partial hysterectomy; she would leave my ovaries but remove my uterus, which was the source of all my pain. I asked her countless questions before I agreed to have it done; I wanted to make sure this was the last option. She scheduled the surgery for the following month. I was nervous about having a major surgery such as this but my doctor reassured me that the procedure was very common these days and could actually be done on an outpatient surgery. Part of me was relieved that the source of my pain was going to be removed and another part of me was scared.
On the day of my hysterectomy my doctor came into the room where I was waiting before surgery and went over the procedure one more time. She answered any other questions I had and then wheeled me into the operating room. It took less than an hour to complete and I was home in my own bed by five o’clock that same afternoon. The pain from the surgery was minimal and by the second day after I was up walking around with very little discomfort. As far as surgeries go this was not such a bad experience.
After I completely healed from the surgery the pelvic pain was completely gone. I felt like a brand new person and had energy to do all the things I used to enjoy doing but couldn’t because I was always in such pain. I was very thankful to have such a great doctor who allowed me to ask lots of questions and kept me informed about what was happening to my body. It’s very important to feel comfortable with your doctor when dealing with such personal issues such as this.
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