Debra was thrilled that menopause meant the end of her monthly cycle, but she didn't know she had to go through something called perimenopause first. After four years of letting nature run its course, she had a hysterectomy - and got her life back.
Debra's Story
"I was looking forward to it all being over."
I thought menopause would be exciting because it would mean the end of my periods. I didn't know there was any such thing at perimenopause though, and I didn't know that had to be experienced first.
I first noticed a change in my cycle. It was lasting anywhere from seven days to 23 at its worst. That was very unusual for me. Then I started to experience extremely heavy bleeding to the point that I would make a phone call to my gynecologist's office to ask them if it was normal to have to change all of the equipment -- the pads, tampons -- every hour and a half. I was told if it gets to less than an hour apart to call again. That was my reassurance.
I had to modify where I went, what I did, what I wore. I had to pack my purse full of supplies. I couldn't get up from a chair without wondering what I was going to leave behind. I had to look at my watch and be conscious of how much time had passed so that I never let an hour and a half go by because an hour and a half was too late. I told my husband, "If you had a gash in your arm that was pouring out blood so significantly that we had to put a six inch long, 1 1/2 -inch thick padded bandage on it and change it every hour and this went on for 10-12 days at a time, we would take you to the emergency room and get that stitched up." After almost four years, I had to do something.
"There is a solution to this problem."
I was working with my physician, a person that I have great esteem for, who had suggested to me that there is a solution to this problem and that solution is a hysterectomy. A hysterectomy is a major operation, and I wanted it to be the way I wanted it to be. I had a certain type of hysterectomy scheduled called a laparoscopic assisted vaginal hysterectomy, but I found out that there was a new procedure called the laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy, where they leave the cervix because women recover a lot faster. Hysterectomies have been around for all of the last century. The first part of the last century through the '50s, they left the cervix because they ran into a lot of problems with bleeding and infection, they didn't have good antibiotics and they didn't have good controls for managing blood loss. The second half of the century from the '50s on, they had blood banking, good antibiotics, they decided to take the cervix. Another 40 years go by and they can compare women pre-1950 and their later years and these women post-1950 and their later years. They found that the women who left their cervix actually had better outcomes later in life with organ prolapse. That was the surgery I wanted.
"I decided to go with the flow."
The most remarkable thing about the post-operative period was the level of fatigue. Getting out of bed to get up in the morning to go take a shower required that I go right back to bed. The first two weeks of recovery were pretty intense, which is not common with a supracervical hysterectomy. A lot of women are up and around within the first week, but I had lost so much blood during the surgery that I was just exhausted.
I decided to go with the flow of fatigue. To do anything other than what my body was dictating to me would be counterproductive and I didn't go through this operation to cause myself more harm.
"I completely understand why women in their 40s have hysterectomies."
In my earlier years I had heard that women in their 40s often had hysterectomies, and I never understood why they did. I have four daughters so I didn't want to enter into anything like that lightly because I think a lot about what kind of message I am sending to my girls through my actions. I decided to tell them everything that I experience no matter what it is so that they have information. That is the one thing I felt was lacking for me -- information. Older generations of women have gone through this, but it was all a big mystery and they did not talk about it. Now, I have a lot of compassion for what women experience when they are going through perimenopausal part of their life and the reasons for why they find themselves in the operating room.
I wrote a letter to my gynecologist surgeon after my operation and I was completely healed and told her what she had done for me was sacred. It was a healing cut, and that is how I look at it. It was very healing.
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