Hysterectomy at 50 – Lisa’s Story

I had my hysterectomy at 50. I was told that I had a large fibroid after a routine examination but was told that I didn’t need treatment unless I started having problems. One year on I was having increasingly heavy periods and my stomach looked like I was 5 months pregnant. After various scans and a visit to a consultant I was told that my only option would be a hysterectomy. There was concern over the very rapid growth of the fibroid and cancer couldn’t be completely ruled out until it had been removed. I did feel extremely frightened at this point. I was also advised to have my ovaries removed due to my age but after careful consideration I decided to keep them as I didn’t want to be going through a surgical menopause while recovering from a major operation. I had my hysterectomy within 4 weeks of seeing the consultant. Due to the size of the womb I had to have a vertical incision but it was all straightforward. I had an epidural as well as a general which I was quite nervous about but it was the best decision because I was in no pain for pretty much the rest of that day. I was also hooked up to a morphine pump but I reacted badly to that so just relied on paracetamol and ibuprofen for the rest of the time. I was only in hospital for 3 days and was told that my uterus was the size of a 22 week pregnancy and that although everything looked normal I would have to wait for the histology results to be sure. I had very good care in hospital but absolutely no in...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - Category: OBGYN Authors: Tags: Your Stories abdominal hysterectomy fibroids Source Type: news