Day 0-Day 1 of my hysterectomy experience

Hey everyone, 👋

Been following discussions on this group for a month, and just wanted to share my story.

I was diagnosed with adenomyosis in Jan this year. I had been in 24/7 pain the past one year and the previous OBGYN I was seeing wasn’t really concerned with digging deeper. So I changed my doctor to Dr. Lee and he helped figure out why I’d been in constant pain for so long. He suggested IUD or hysterectomy (leave the ovaries in). I’m 39 with a 6 yr old daughter, and we don’t plan to have another kid. And my husband said he’s seeing me suffer enough with my periods for 20 years we’ve been together. So we spoke and decided to proceed with a hysterectomy. My family was incredibly supportive as well. So, got the insurance approval, and was super lucky to get a surgery date schedule within a month with the same doctor.

I had my total laparoscopic hysterectomy and bilateral salpingectomy yesterday morning. Checked in at Winnie Palmer (Orlando) at 8:20am, and the wonderful Dr. Shawn Lee did the surgery. He was there early, so they were all ready and my surgery started 30-40 mins ahead of schedule. It lasted 1.5 hours. The staff were very friendly and attentive, and let me sleep a little extra before waking me up 😅

Felt good when I woke up, I’d say a bit refreshed because I hadn’t been sleeping well for weeks because of the constant uterus pain, which also resulted in me getting high BP in 2025 and needed to start meds for that 🙄. Didn’t have too much pain when I woke up, just nausea. They gave me medicine for that and I immediately felt much better. Had some ice water and honey graham crackers (those helped a lot as well!). I said I’d like to pee so they helped me to the bathroom, stayed with me and were happy I peed a lot without any issues 🤣. After a while they shifted me to the other recovery room and checked some stuff, and I was all good to go. I have the On-Q Pain System bag with a catheter attached to my tummy apart from the three tiny surgical incisions. I need to carry that little pouch for 4-5 days, and once the medicine is over I can remove the catheter by myself. It’s non-narcotic, so it’s safe. And they said I can use hot water bag and Tylenol or Ibuprofen up to 1000mg for the pain.

My husband and daughter were downstairs waiting, so they helped me get dressed and wheeled me down around 3:30pm. My surgery was a great experience. I had the support, and I was excited, so I think all that helped.

I have so far not had any surgical gas pains at all. I slept on a wedge pillow all night and no issues lying on my sides with a pillow for support. I weigh 200lbs/92kgs so having that pillow for my tummy helped. The pain wasn’t much yesterday because of the narcotic pain killers but it’s getting painful today. Nothing too bad. Very similar to strong period pain/cramps. It will probably get worse tomorrow, but I’m ready for it 🤣 long term benefit outweighs short term pain, I guess.

So, yeah, that’s Day 0 and Day 1 for me. Feel free to ask questions 😁 and I hope this gives everyone hope which we all need so badly. ❤️