Surgical Precision

So the day finally came, I was finally getting surgery and some answers about what was going on with my reproductive organs. We had to get to the hospital at 4:00am (YUCK!) to check in. Props to my husband for not only getting up that early but staying and waiting through all of it. Once I was checked in at Pre Op, I had to go to another floor to begin my pre op procedures. When we got there they immediately told me to say goodbye to my husband and come to the back to get ready. I had to take a pregnancy test (ha ha very funny hospital) and get in my surgical gown and was told someone would be back to get me ready. Good thing I was able to bring my phone back with me because it took them an hour and a half to get back to me.

Once the nurses came back they labeled me an allergy and fall risk (again ha ha very funny) and put these things on my legs to massage them and keep them warm to prevent clots during surgery. The nurses then tried to get an IV line put in....I say nurses because it took many tries for them to have a vein not roll away on them so multiple nurses tried. They finally got one put into my right wrist. I then was visited by my anesthesiologist, surgical resident and my surgeon, they asked if I had any questions but I honestly was just ready to get going.

The nurse came back, gave me some pill to ease me into sleep, a patch for nausea and then I got wheeled to the operating room. It was interesting seeing it after having just watched Grey's Anatomy. The room is much smaller and has much more stuff in it than you see on tv. They transferred me to the operating table and put a gas mask on my mouth and I was out.

I woke up in the recovery room and saw on the clock it said 10:00am. The nurse then called my husband to tell him I was awake but not ready yet. She gave me ice and some crackers so I could take some pain meds. I was convinced I had to go to the bathroom even though the nurse kept telling me I had a catheter in during surgery so I would have an empty bladder, but there must have pressure in my abdomen making me think that. I also had another IV in my left wrist so when they were taken out I had to have both wrists wrapped like a suicide attempt survivor (or maybe that was just my dark sense of humor that thought that).

When I was more coherent, the nurse explained that I had 3 cysts removed, along with half my left ovary and my left tube. I was so confused, because going into the surgery it looked like my whole right ovary was getting taken out. I definitely was not in the right mind to understand so I put it out of my mind until I went him. My husband came and pulled the car around, we went to CVS to get pain meds and went home for both of us to finally sleep.

When I finally woke up and had some food, I was able to read the surgical notes on my chart account about what had actually happened. It looked like like there were 3 big cysts on my left ovary but the way they were in my abdomen they were blocking my right via ultrasound which is why we thought it was the right. The big one, had damaged my left tube so it had to be removed because it was too damaged. That 100% explained my ectopic I had last year. Because they cysts turned out to not be borderline tumors according to pathology, the doctor was able to save half my left ovary and the right ended up looking perfect. So I am left with 1.5 ovaries and 1 tube, plenty to still make a baby with. There was also no sign of endometriosis in there, just super nasty cysts so thankfully I don't have that on top of my PCOS.

Recovery was honestly, pretty quick. The first two days were the hardest, I slept most of the day and my body hurt all over. By the 3rd day, it was more localized to just my left side where all the work was done. As you can see in the picture, there was literally a chunk out of me. Because it was laproscopic, I only have 4 small incisions, all of which are healing nicely. Every day that has gone by, I've had less and less pain. And today, on day 10 post op, I have pretty much none. I know my insides are still healing and I still need to rest....but I'm getting so antsy and just want to be productive. I know I'm not suppose to lift anything above 5 lbs for another 3 weeks and I have my post op in 4 more weeks, but I'm feeling pretty good. I'm also feeling pretty hopeful that this has removed enough obstacles to let me have a chance at having a baby.