I’m back, no I wasn’t hibernating from this blog, unfortunately I had an assignment to do so that took priority (yes study, just part of a very long list of distractions I have given myself).
I will pick up where I left off from my post “trust your instincts”, this is the other part of the informative yet somewhat boring stage of this blog.
We had our diagnosis thanks to our instincts and Dr Awesome listening to us. What I needed now was surgery to remove the adhesion’s, this is done by an operative hysteroscopy, just like the original hysteroscopy I had but adding in general anesthetic and some micro tools. Of course we wanted Dr Awesome to preform this surgery but the cost of doing so privately was beyond us, I was referred back to the original hospital that did the D&C’s and the miss diagnosed tests. This time I did my research on the surgeon I was assigned to, thankfully I had been listed under the head Gynecologist and his side kick so while I wasn’t being operated on by my preferred Dr I got the best on offer. I will never forget our 1st meeting with the Surgeon, my husband and I called him Dr Smiley, he smiled the whole time and while I realize he was being pleasant it looked as though he was going to burst into song and laughter at any minute. Even when he was explaining the possible bad outcomes of the surgery he had this ridiculous grin on his face while i’m sitting there in tears. When ever he explained anything to us about the surgery he would look at us with this big smile and say “so what do you think about that then” I wanted to scream at him and reply “I think its fukn shit, that’s what I think about it”. He must have asked about 10 times during a 20 min consultation. I eventually said something along the lines of “well it really doesn’t matter what I think, I have no idea about this surgery, your the professional, just do what you need to do”.
So after a few more months passed we got the surgery date, so on went my lucky socks and my greenstone and in we went. I was nervous of what I would wake up to but being I had had general anesthetic 3 times already I wasn’t worried about that side of it. Some people don’t like it, I really don’t seem to mind it at all. I wouldn’t say I love it but its a nice feeling those few seconds drifting off. Anyway the surgery took 1.5 hours, longer than they expected. I went home that evening to the comfort of my own bed and the love of my h-band and dog. The pain post surgery was very manageable, probably the most discomfort was the ache in my pelvic bone area, sounds weird I know but i’m guessing from it all being clamped open for so long? I don’t know but it was just an achy bruised feeling. In the grand scheme of things it was fine. I had a couple of very low key days with cramps but it was a very quick recovery. It must have been around 1 month post surgery we went back in for a follow up appointment with Dr Smiley, between you and me he did say that he couldn’t believe the Asherman’s hadn’t been picked up during my 1st hysteroscopy with his colleague, it was so glaringly obvious. He showed us before and after pictures, he was very pleased with his work and it certainly looked like he had done a great job. With this surgery its so delicate and the risk of accidentally cutting through your uterus wall is very high. The surgeons are guided by a camera and using tiny tiny micro scissors they cut away the adhesion’s. Not only do they need to cut through the center of them to separate the walls of the uterus they also need to cut away all the left over bits of flesh flapping about being VERY careful to not destroy the lining in the process. I can only imagine its a fidley bloody job and as I say what he did do was done very well. He finished the appointment saying “okay well good luck, if your not pregnant in 6 months time make an appointment to come back and see me”. I could not believe after everything that had happened he actually thought a. that its correct practice to not do a follow up hysteroscopy or HSG and b. that he thought I could actually do that, after the already years of crap! I walked out like a stunned mullet to be honest. I should have said “no, I want a follow up test” but again when you are not the professional you doubt your thoughts.
So back we went to Dr Awesome with all my surgery notes who without saying anything I could see on his face he also thought it odd there was no follow up scheduled. So I monitored my next few cycles, while there was a definite improvement on my periods it still wasn’t right. Along with Dr Awesome’s support we went privately for another HSG. Sure enough it showed up a reasonably large section of adhesion’s Dr Smiley had missed. I was devastated. The thought of having to go through all this again!
After some guidance we figured out that if we got transferred to the hospital that Dr Awesome worked out of he could pick up my case and preform the next surgery. I wrote a letter stating my case and pleading with my current hospital to release me from their care and request Dr Awesome handle my care. To be honest, with my case I was pleading there was not a lot of room for them to disagree. Part of me felt bad, I was basically saying they were not good enough but I just felt we had been let down time and time again, we were talking about the likely hood of us having a family, it is so important to us so we couldn’t take it lightly! We needed confidence and we weren’t feeling that.
As you can imagine it took some time for the transfer to go through and my next operation to be scheduled. But once it all went through I was being operated on by Dr Awesome and it wasn’t costing us a penny. I felt so comfortable and confident and safe.
So again on went the lucky socks and greenstone. In order for him to get a clear opening I was given these pills about an hour before surgery to open up my cervix. I had had a small dose of these before my D&C’s but nothing like this. I can only explain it like it felt like someone was ripping my pelvis apart and all my insides were going to fall out. I was in so much pain, they were pumping morphine into me and it wasn’t even touching the sides of the pain, by the time I went in to the surgery I was as high as a kite. I felt like a big girls blouse but holy crap, is that what child birth is like? I wonder if the pain was worse due to the adhesion’s and I also wonder had Dr Smiley used this method to open up the access perhaps he wouldn’t have missed the section he did.
When I came around from surgery, all I could feel was that immense pain, it was still there, I screamed as I woke up instantly clutching my pelvis. Luckily the nurses were there throwing more morphine in my arm quicker than I could register what was going on. Needless to say I didn’t go home that night which I think my husband was relieved about. In my mind I thought I was going home as soon as I saw him but the reality was I was so high on pain killers I couldn’t walk let alone go home. He took one look and me and said “ahh na your not coming home with me”.
Dr Awesome called my husband straight after surgery and told him surgery had been a great success and he was so very happy with the outcome. We scheduled a follow up with him at the fertility clinic a few weeks after surgery. We were happy and I was excited at the thought of no more surgeries and no more belly-less me!
Me Versus Ashermans 