Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my blog. This blog is about me and my recovery after having a laparoscopic Hysterectomy just 3 days ago. I was lying on the sofa this morning and only on day three, thought.." God I'm bored" oh dear not a good start to a potential 4 weeks off work. So what better to do than to get writing. Now I don't pretend to be an author or anything so please excuse me if this is not novel material but it is just little old me passing the time of day letting everyone know how it is.

So I'll start at the beginning and try to keep it brief. Back in February I went to have routine op at the Nuffield (no I don't have Bupa it was with the NHS) as I was having woman problems, and because the doc was getting annoyed with the constant visits decided to refer me to have the numerous tests before they search for the stuff they couldn't see. At my age it is  more common to have Adenomyosis as Edometriosis is more common among younger women but either way I was to get an exploritory laparoscopy and operation if they found anything. Well interestingly (if that sort of thing interests you) they did find some Endometriosis and treated it there and then, but afterwards the gynaecologist told me that there was not much there and felt this was not necessarily the cause of my "problems" on a later visit he showed me the pictures of my "insides" yuk! and some dark blue areas which can be synonymous to painful periods and so on. In the meantime the coil they had fitted whilst under general had increased my migraines (yes I'm a sufferer of them too) so they decided it was not for me and whipped it on out "OUCH" loud swear work politely put inside the word ouch, no-one warned me that would hurt :) Oh well on I go....

So long and short of it is I had to make a decision. Either continue to put up with problems until they naturally stop which may or may not be soon due to family history or just get it all sorted now with a lovely little op called a Hysterectomy. Well what would you do if you had the choice, simple really isn't it? well no it isn't that simple when it comes down to it cos' your Mrs emotional comes to visit and gets you thinking about all the silly things like " but I might need it" or " I won't be a woman anymore" or " what if I need to have more kids" that of course being the most unrealistic stupid thought of all as that hasn't been on the agenda for years! BUT all these thoughts attack you and then lots of others including the sex ones, you know the ones, I don't need to write them down...no I'm not telling you, just use your imagination.

So after speaking to my family, mum said" don't be stupid get it all taken away, I would have jumped at the chance if they'd offered it to me" and my boss " well you know what to do Kate, you've already made the decision really haven't you" she always says very sensible and intelligent things, even when I'm stressed and gives me good books to read on how to cope with stress (which I'm fairly crap at by the way) oh and then I completely forget to take the books home to read. Anyway moving on, most importantly my husband, after all this is going to affect him too probably, he was very supportive and positive and said I should go ahead and we would deal with it.....

So I went for my follow up to discuss the" ins and outs" excuse the pun there and I cried, oh god I can't believe I cried, oh but don't worry as that happens all the time apparently and out he came with a small box of tissues from a very large pile kept in the corner for such occasions, he asked me what the tears were for and after a lovely long chat he had filled in all the gaps and we were on. All I had to do was book the appointment, he suggested a full Hysterectomy as this may also help my migraines as they had mostly always been related to my menstrual cycle (although I do get random ones, of which he was not going to promise anything, ah well ya can't win them all as they say).
So I called his secretary, yes he has one of those. She told me she thought it would be a month and I would get a call back. I got a call back on Friday 1st June telling me they have a slot on the 15th...oh dear my heart was racing my mouth went dry and I did not know what to do, I mean honestly I had already made the bloody decision so why the panic when it was only 2 weeks away instead of a month; so I asked her if I could call her back and she said before the end of the day please as we have limited slots and the consultants holidays are coming up and we don't know when we will fit you in after this "no pressure then" laughs quietly.

So here I am again, not able to make a decision without speaking to all the important people, Mike my husband, Mum and my boss Helen, all of which tell me to go ahead. Better time of year at work as it is quiet at the moment so they can be without me for a bit. 2 weeks to get my head around such an operation. Anyway so I called them back and made the arrangements.

Mum sent me a lovely link to "understanding menopause" haha, suddenly I feel old....

I had of course felt a bit panicked about the unknown so did lots of research online and talked to as many people as I could who had had one before. Everyone said it was the best thing they had done and I could not find much negative information that was putting me off online so I felt OK about it. I knew I would be alright with the anaesthetic as last time had been a breeze, 2 seconds and it was all over and I had no after effects at all. The laparoscopy on the other hand was another story; well they tell you that you may get some shoulder pain with the residual gas left inside you but it should only last a couple of days...liars I tell you all of them! A good two weeks and it eventually dissipated, the most uncomfortable and in the early days painful experience and I swore I would never do it again...and here I am looking forward to all that again...dum de dum.