Post myo--big fibroid

March 9, 2002

Hello,

Am back from the hospital and staying with a friend for a few days.

My abdominal myo was Monday at 7:15 am.

The myo went well. My tummy's flat!!! The little rolls are starting

to form above the incision area but I'm still very happy about the

results. There is some swelling but nothing compared to the bulge of

the fibroids. Bruising is just starting to appear.

The fibroids had gotten pretty large. The pathology report is due in

about a week and I'll know more then about exact size and weight but

here's what my dr was able to provide so far:

pedunculated subserosal fibroid measured in at 18cms x 14cms. His

guess was it weighed about 7 to 8 pounds. Yup. BIG!!! The bikini

incision ended up being 11 inches. (Won't kid you, it hurts. There

are 2 vertical interior incisions that cause most of the pain. I'm

taking hydrocodone/acetamin for the pain.) The surgical team had a

bit of a struggle to get the fibroid out, it just fit thru.

The intramural fibroid was 7cms x 7cms. Very round.

There were several " seedlings " which were also removed.

They found some endometriosis when they went in. He says there were

some adhesion scars from the endo but it wasn't too bad.. It may be

that the endo has been asymptomatic as neither one of us expected

there to be any. (I also had had a laparoscopic exam and it didn't

show up during the exam--that was 2 years ago.) The endo was pretty

well hidden by the fibroids which also may explain why it was missed

during the lap exam.

I'm sleeping alot. I can walk about a block and then its back to bed

for a nap. I've been trying to walk 4 times each day but sometimes

the sleep wins.

The epidural worked out pretty well I think (for post myo pain

management). I still had alot of discomfort but it helped

psychologically for me to be " there " I asked for something extra the

first night as I had alot of trouble sleeping comfortably. They gave

me morphine in the iv and i konked out. The epidural was in for the

first two and a half days and then i switched to the vicodin. (see

more below)

Coughing was the worst part. (I had residual congestion from a cold

from the week before and the nurses insisted i cough out the mucus as

much as possible.) I found that the only position i could really

handle coughing in was sitting straight up with my knees pulled up a

little. It seemed to work better than pressing the pillow in to my

abdomen which didn't do it for me for some reason.

I only have one minor complaint--for someone else it might have been

major but i'm thru it so its only mildly irritating now. I was

continually asked by the nurses what level my pain was at " on a scale

of 1 to 10 " . What no one told me, until the third day, was that they

won't give you additional pain medication unless its over a 7.

I kept wondering why they seemed hesitant to increase meds the first

2 days. I naively thought that a scale of 1 to 10 meant at 1 you

need an aspirin, 2 a motrin, 3 extra strength, etc on up to 10 where

you'd want full anesthesia. Turns out they're only interested in the

7 to 10 category. SO... why ask about on a scale of 1 to 10 if you

don't care about the first 6?

Minor complaint but it annoyed me that the nurse i had on the first 2

days didn't take the time to explain this. It was the new nurse on

the third day who did explain it all in detail. The anesthesiologist

visited twice daily to check that the epidural was working--they

adjusted it once to balance the delivery and once for level of

anesthesia--and to let me know to ask the nurses to contact them if i

needed something more. Pretty clear to me now that the first nurse

didn't contact them. (it was the night nurse who at 2 am finally

called to get me the little bit extra so I could sleep.BTW--i thought

the night nurses were great. it may be they had a little more time to

help.)

Its a minor gripe but I'm going to pass it on to my dr, in case it

helps anyone in the future, " ask the nurses to clarify in detail what

on a scale of 1 to 10 means " . I wasn't prepared for dealing with pain

management semantics and i didn't have the experience of prior

surgery to know. You like to think that when you say you are in pain,

that someone is hearing what you're saying. If I say " the pain is a

little sharp, like a 6 " , Its annoying to find out the nurse is

hearing " oh, she doesn't need ANY additional medication. " when in

fact I do!!!

Well, time to go nap again.

Hope this finds everyone well.

Best wishes,

PS My fibroids were BIG. If I had to do it over again, and if I could

offer advice to anyone, try to have the myo BEFORE a fibroid gets as

big as mine did.

March 9, 2002

:

I was thinking about you all week so I was glad to see your post today.

Well, it's finally over!! I'm sure you are relieved. For those of you

wondering and I have the same doctor and we were both scheduled for myo

in December but got sick and had to postpone. We were planning on

being roommates.

, I had bad experiences with some of the nurses at UCLA not explaining

things or being too busy to come to my aid when I needed them. I experienced

a lot of nauseau, which wasn't relieved by any of the medication. No one

EVER asked about pain tolerance numbers, they just gave me the drugs when I

asked for them. I'm glad your stomach is flatter, that's so encouraging. My

stomach was actually bigger after surgery, now three months later it is

finally starting to go down. Dr said it was from irritation. But the

exciting part is my stomach is finally feeling softer . . with the fibroids

it was just hard lumps.

Get plenty of rest . . . and take it slowly. Did you need any blood

transfusions??? Keep us updated on your progress when you get back online.

March 9, 2002