Endo Excision: Day 27

Recovery Update Day #27

So being in a car sucks big time. My organs are acting all willy nilly in there without their endo glue and that sensation is quite strange and sort of painful. Also, any compression on my belly (pants/shorts/skirts of any type) still sucks big time. It's really crappy to have to leave the house in a very comfortable outfit (I thought) and end up changing into pajama pants 3 hours later and laying on the couch because I'm in pain. I really hoped I'd be passed this stage but here we are. All I can do is let it happen.

On a brighter note, I had a follow-up appointment this morning with my surgeon around 10am. He reiterated that I had a MASSIVE SURGERY and that my swelling might not totally be down until maybe 3-4 months from now. At that time, I will have an ultrasound to check on my recovery progress and that's when I'll be able to make some next surgery decisions.

After said ultraound, one of the best options, in my opinion and in his, is to have a partial hysterectomy where they only take my uterus, which will hugely cut down on the chances of me experiencing more endo growth and pain. They'd be leaving my left ovary in as a way to sidestep early menopause for me but if they don't get every tiny bit of endo, I could still be in pain. (But honestly, putting a 36-year-old into menopause has some serious complications too so I think keeping the ovary is probably the safer option for now.)

In the same surgery, he would be taking a second look to see if there was any endometriosis growth or anything else that they might have missed that they can excise at that time. The fact that he wants to take a second look to double check after everything they found (see last update) is really, really validating and makes me feel so incredibly seen. And I had even forgotten to mention something pretty big in that iodate...

They removed a hemorrhagic cyst (cyst consisting of blood) that was nearly 2 inches by 1 inch. There didn't seem to be any complications with that specifically though. He seemed far more concerned that we make sure they corrected all the other findings and diagnoses.

There are some other surgery options that don't include the partial hysterectomy but as of right now, I'm not sure that I would go down those paths. I've been pretty adamant about a hysterectomy for the last 10 years and I don't know if that's going to change anytime soon. The only reason I would decide against it is if my surgeon thinks my quality of life would suffer as a result, but I also know I won't get a "second look" without the hysterectomy. Choices.

Unfortunately, the timing of the next surgery depends on how well my body heals from this one. They won't entertain scheduling the next surgery until we know more about this recovery and I think that's perfectly reasonable.

I have a mental goal to have a hysterectomy by late September/early October, or after my birthday in January. But we will see how that shakes out. In either case, I'll be making the most educated decision I can between me and my team of doctors. They're truly awesome.

*I was about to post this and then I remembered something important that I'm just gonna add down here... A lot of you know that they cauterized my liver. And if you didn't know that now you do. He did explain why to us. There is a very deep lesion on the right underside of my liver that he cannot remove robotically. He said if he had tried, there would be a risk of my lungs dropping. So yea... If that doesn't tell you/me how serious this surgery was, I don't know what will. Just crazy what endometriosis is capable of.