Abdominal Hysterectomy: My experience

Here’s what my experience has been thus far. I’m currently 6-weeks post-op.

Type: Abdominal Hysterectomy; kept my ovaries. Fibroid Size: 11.7cm, 4.5cm and 3 more small fibroid tumors. The large one was a size of a small watermelon! No wonder I felt so fat. Dr said it was equivalent of being 5 months pregnant!

My recovery: Relatively uneventful but the bottoms of my lungs collapsed from laying down. I recommend that first week or two doing deep breath exercises, getting up and moving around frequently. When I say uneventful, I mean I healed fairly well, and didn’t have any major complications.

Pain level: I used to get horrible cramps so the pain didn’t seem too terrible to me. That said it was more of a sharp cramping particularly if I turned my torso or obviously was getting up and down. The cramping hit me on day four and it lasted about a week. Prior to that I had zero pain, except for terrible back pain the first day from the positing during my surgery (to be fair, I made sure I stayed on top of my pain meds). if you’ve never had bad cramps before, then the cramping could be painful and quite uncomfortable. But that’s what the drugs are there for :) . The first week I had some bad gas pains. Walking and lots of walking helps with this. A heating pad will also be your best friend with cramping pains.

Energy: I knew this was a big surgery, but I did not recognize how much energy it zaps from you. I am currently on week six and I am still really struggling with energy levels. I work remotely and I still would recommend taking the full six weeks off and even trying to take off longer if you can or only going back part-time after the six weeks. It’s one thing when you’re relaxing, but once you have to go back to work it’s likely going to be tough and the brain fog is real. I had never experienced that before and it was really tough for me. I ended up getting six more weeks off of work and I’m hoping I can go back before the six weeks but the energy and the brain fog has been a major struggle for me.

Tips/Tricks: Absolutely take stool softeners. It will otherwise be difficult to go #2 and you could pop a stitch by pushing when you absolutely should not be pushing (particularly in the first few weeks post-op). I would even recommend taking stool softeners a week before the surgery. Miralax is great and is flavorless - mix it with a drink and you can’t taste it (pro tip: don’t mix it with water).

Sleeping: if you can afford it, rent or purchase a lift recliner. Those first two weeks it was the best thing I could have done. I had tried sleeping in my bed, but it was really difficult to sleep in my bed and try to get up. if you can’t get a lift recliner, then I would recommend lots of pillows and body pillows to prop you up in bed.

Planning: I planned ahead for a lot of things. I had someone come once a week and do my meal prep, I had someone come a few times a week and do litter boxes, I ordered things ahead of time on Amazon to help with my recovery, such as body pillows, a toilet seat riser, a foot stool for the bathroom, which you’ll definitely want cause it helps with # 1 and #2. I did have to use my arms to lift my legs, but having the stool definitely helped with going to the bathroom. I also bought things to keep me occupied such as a coloring, book, puzzles, books, etc. It gets pretty boring.

Eating: the first week my digestive system wasn’t great so I would recommend having applesauce and toast and crackers on hand then once you’re past that stage, you’ll definitely want protein and veggies and eating, clean and healthy. Protein helps the healing process.

Misc: read your post up discharge papers and actually follow what they say, know the warning signs so you know if you need to go back in, and when the doctor says to take it easy, they mean it. Don’t take what they say lightly; if you push it too hard, you’re going to pay for the next day if not longer. There was a couple times when I tried pushing it and I was in pain for 3 more days.

I lost about 10 pounds within those first couple of weeks. I suspect because of the diet, but I also because my fibroid was so large. I’ll keep you posted on the next six weeks if there’s any further updates that would be helpful to your recovery.

As far as the timeline: everyone told me that the worst of it is usually the first three days but I didn’t really feel any pain those first three days. It wasn’t until about day four when the cramps started to kick in, so if you can get through that first week that’s really gonna be the worst of it . Up until week 2, I was pretty wiped out and by weeks 3 - 4 I was finally starting to feel a little bit human and at 5-6 weeks, energy has gotten slightly better.

Ps. I’m definitely not missing my period! Best of luck to you! Hope this summary helps you.