Hysterectomy: My experience with hysterectomy | Part 1 My twenty-year battle with menstruation

By Salt and Pepper Fermented Black Beans

Pepper Salt Dou Chi, a fellow villager from her hometown, chose to have her uterus removed for some reason. She described her experience in detail on her personal blog and the forum of her hometown. We have obtained permission to reprint and share it with you here. Today's issue is part 1, and part 2 will be released tomorrow. Welcome to the forum to participate in the discussion and ask Pepper Salt Dou Chi questions:

womenoverseas.com/t/...

Part 1: My twenty-year battle with menstruation

Menstruation is the biggest failure in the history of human evolution (a self-proclaimed title). It tortures and wastes a quarter of the lives of many middle-aged women (because we are discussing topics related to menstruation, the women in this article refer to the assigned sex at birth, hereinafter referred to as women), produces countless plastic garbage and biochemical waste. It is outrageous to support such a thing at such a high cost when the desire to have children is getting lower and lower today.

After fighting menstruation for 20 years, this year I finally saw the silver lining behind the dark clouds, and the end of this pain is just around the corner. This article is the first half of this battle - who am I, where I (my hatred of menstruation) came from, and where I am going. I will probably have a middle part after the surgery at the end of the year, and the second part of the long-term review in another year.

What is menstruation

First, some general knowledge:

source:

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%88%E7%B6%93

Menstruation is the phenomenon that women's blood or mucous membrane is regularly discharged from the endometrium through the vagina, commonly known as period or menstruation.

• Menstruation is the process by which the female body prepares for pregnancy by periodically thickening the endometrium to store nutrients needed for embryo development, and the substances formed when pregnancy does not occur.

• The average menstrual cycle is 28 days, and each bleeding lasts 2-7 days (when I copied this, I realized that there are lucky viewers whose menstruation only lasts two days??). It usually first appears between the ages of 12-15 and ends after "menopause" at the age of 45-55.

• Some women may experience abdominal pain before or one or two days after their period starts. In severe cases, they may experience symptoms such as dizziness and nausea.

From this definition, we can see that the only purpose of menstruation is to prepare for pregnancy. This is why I called menstruation the biggest failure in human evolution. Other mammals only experience menstruation when they are in estrus (otherwise, it is not easy to survive in nature with a lot of blood exposed for a month). In the hunting and gathering period, the average human woman only gave birth to 4 to 5 children, and 6 to 7 during the farming period. Since the 20th century, with the improvement of women's education level and working ratio, the number of children has dropped to about 2 children, not to mention that it takes 20 to 30 years to waste a lot of nutrition and resources every month to prepare for the possibility of pregnancy.

Why does menstruation have no value to me?

Friends who are familiar with me may know that I cannot even feel the cuteness of other people’s (supposedly) cute and well-behaved children, let alone my own children. When my circle was not so anti-childbearing, some people might not understand when they heard me say that I did not like children. For this audience, you can roughly imagine a centipede lover telling others how cute centipedes are. I can understand that there are some people in the world who are fascinated by centipedes, but not me. Really, no matter how cute and worthy you think they are, I cannot feel it... Everyone has their own aspirations, grow up and deal with it ok? (This sentence is said to my mother).

Some people who are against childbearing may just not want to have children themselves (accept adoption), or they are not opposed to having children but feel that they cannot be a good mother so they do not have children out of a sense of responsibility, or they do not have children for economic reasons. Not me. If I am bound to this thing, I will not have children even if I am given money. Moreover, this thing is harmful to the body, laborious and expensive. For me, there is no reason to have children. I often say that the only red line in my mate selection criteria is that they cannot have children (you can have children outside at will, and don’t expect me to have any moral or legal relationship with these children). Everything else, from personality to appearance to even gender, is negotiable. I often tell my mother that my homosexuality and my childlessness are two independent events, but she doesn’t seem to understand.

When I was young, people would tell me that “I want to have children in the future”. As I got older, I became more confident in telling them so. I have never felt the slightest bit of the so-called maternal instinct, and my childrenphobia may even be getting worse. I used to be able to tolerate children who would not offend others unless they offended me in public, but now I try to stay away from them as much as possible.

Why can't I tolerate my period?

If you just don't need the functions brought by menstruation, after all, it takes a certain effort to permanently eliminate it, so if the side effects are not particularly serious, you may be able to bear it. What a coincidence, I don't have painless menstruation with light flow and short duration like some lucky viewers. Although the dysmenorrhea is not very serious, I have been a user of hemorrhage since I was a child, and I didn't even think about using tampons in small cities in China. When I was a child, sanitary napkins were basically not used in the first two days of heavy flow. It was like wearing a two-pound soaked diaper every day, and I couldn't move in class (please use Sandy Lam's voice to imagine), and even so, sometimes I couldn't hold on to a class and leaked. There was no way to sleep at night. My mother would bring back some medical cotton pads for surgical patients from the unit. I still have a "menstrual blanket" at home until now (because the flow is heavy, even if I don't consider the hygiene problem and only consider the flow, I can't use tampons at night), so I have trained myself to sleep motionless all night since I was a child.

After I came to the United States and started using tampons, the situation was slightly relieved. The maximum capacity tampons + sanitary napkins at least ensured my ability to exercise without feeling uncomfortable, and I could move normally when the flow was heavy. In addition, I was young and strong during those years, so I didn't have severe dysmenorrhea, and my cycle was very stable at 35 days, so I lived harmoniously with this problem for a few years.

Until one time, a friend brought some Middle Eastern candied dates from Saudi Arabia. After eating them, my cycle suddenly became disordered with another female friend (now it seems to be a coincidence). Not long after, my cycle stabilized at 28 days, which was not bad. Who would have thought that the amount of menstruation has been increasing in the past two years. Originally, Super could last for 45 minutes, but now it has gradually become that it can only last for more than half an hour. Basically, I can't leave the toilet for the first two days, which greatly affects my travel. The dysmenorrhea has gradually become more serious. Although it is not painful to the point of fainting, I basically don't want to do anything for most of the day. So I was motivated to solve the idea of ​​​​solving this problem.

What have I tried to alleviate the negative effects of menstruation?

Short-acting contraceptive pills

The first is naturally the simplest, most common and most convenient method - short-acting contraceptive pills. The principle is to take oral contraceptive pills containing estrogen/progesterone to make the body mistakenly think that it is pregnant, so as to achieve the effect of contraception/stopping/controlling the menstrual cycle. The method of use is generally to take it orally every day, and then stop taking the pills after a certain period of time to release the menstruation. People who adapt well can take the pills for three months before having menstruation, and because they control the pills themselves, they can accurately control when it comes, so as to reduce the impact on travel plans.

I took it for about a year and tried two brands of drugs with different hormone content. At first, it had a slight effect of reducing menstruation, but it would come when it was supposed to come. If I continued to take the medicine, it would keep spotting, and finally generate a menstruation that lasted more than two weeks. For a while, I felt that I was about to get dermatitis. Because the effect was minimal and the consequences were even worse, I decided to give up this method and try the next one.

IUD

I went to see the doctor with the mentality of "I can't stand this shit anymore, I'm going to have a permanent surgery", but based on the principle of "not unless necessary" (...), the doctor asked me if I wanted to try some other less radical methods, so I decided to try IUD. IUD, like implants, achieves the effect of stopping menstruation/contraception by implanting a continuous release of hormones in the body. It is effective for several years and is much more convenient than oral short-term effects. Implants are usually implanted on the arm, with trauma and can be felt, while IUDs are inserted into the uterus through the vagina. The main purpose of implants is contraception, and the menopause effect is only achieved by some people, while IUDs have the menopause effect for more users, and the longest effective period is up to 7 years. Therefore, I decisively chose IUD.

The process of inserting an IUD is a bit like PAP smear, but more painful. Before the insertion, I took four tablets of ibuprofen as instructed by the doctor (I had only taken one tablet before). I even felt a little high when it came, and I still felt some pain. And because the external intrusion contacts the uterus more, it will cause cramps and thus cause some dysmenorrhea. After the insertion, the doctor reminded me that there will be a 3-6 month adaptation period, during which there may be menstrual cycle disorders and spotting.

After I took it, my first few periods were similar to those of short-acting contraceptive pills, coming as expected, with a slightly reduced amount (still a lot), and I couldn't stop it as I wanted like taking pills, so I went through two months of periods that lasted two to three weeks each time, and the cycle was still 28 days (that is, I was menstruating half of the time). I thought I was still in the adaptation period, so I just endured it.

When I had my third menstrual period, a miracle happened (……). I was car camping at the time, and the toilet was not sanitary and convenient to go to. I simply took medicine to hold on and didn’t go home temporarily because the amount was not large. When I changed the tampon for the last time before going to bed, I suddenly felt a stronger feeling of dropping blood clots than usual (……). After it came out, I saw that this "blood clot" was abnormally large, and some metal filaments were exposed. I immediately realized that the IUD might have slipped out. Because it was a public toilet at the camping site, I decisively didn't move to pull it out. I took a few disgusting photos as evidence in case the doctor wanted to see it (but he didn't). Then I put the tampon and two night sanitary napkins together in a T-shape (because I didn't bring diapers when I went out) and went back to the car to sleep.

I went home and checked online and found out that the chance of an IUD falling out is 0.05% to 8% (this range is quite large). When I asked the doctor, he said it was possible. The options given to me were to go back to taking short-acting IUDs, try another IUD, or refer to a gynecologist to see if I could have it removed. I thought I could have it removed if I wanted, so I happily decided to go to the gynecologist.

Hysterectomy

I made an appointment with the Gyn more than a month later. I thought that I might not be able to do a hysterectomy after seeing the doctor first, so I just randomly found a female doctor from a minority group who was still accepting new patients at the hospital I was referred to. After understanding the situation, she gave me a slap in the face: if there is no reason, we will not do a hysterectomy. Apparently "annoyed by period" is not a "legitimate reason." But the doctor added that if the amount of bleeding is large, the short-acting IUD is ineffective, and the IUD is also discharged, you can go for an ultrasound to check if there are any other problems.

Because when I returned to China in 2017, my mother dragged me to do a comprehensive physical examination, including B-ultrasound (applying oil on the belly, common in pregnancy examinations), and there was no problem, so this time I had no hope at all and thought that this thing should not be done. I began to consider the feasibility of going to Thailand or Mexico for a medical trip in my mind, but with the mentality of being here, I agreed to do ultrasound. Ultrasound was quickly scheduled at the same hospital. It uses a probe to enter the uterus from the vagina to take an image. The probe used by the hospital I was in was very thin and lubricated, so it was not as painful as pap smear, and I didn’t need to take painkillers. I went back and waited for the results easily after the operation.

In addition, the doctor also prescribed me a drug to reduce the amount of blood during my period (some kind of acid, you can ask your OB), which for me was probably from super 35 minutes full to 45 minutes full, but it was better than nothing, so I took it for now. The doctor also mentioned other options such as endometrial ablation, but there were many downsides and I didn't want to go through it again (and later found out that it didn't apply to my case), so I didn't know much about it.

A few days later, I received a message from the doctor: Bad news, you have a 2.7cm uterine fibroid. After waiting for a few weeks for a video appointment, the doctor said that it might be the cause of the increased menstrual bleeding and the IUD slipping out. Treatments include surgical removal of the fibroid, or hysterectomy to remove the entire uterus to prevent future lesions. I immediately said without hesitation that it must be hysterectomy. The doctor recommended Laparoscopic hysterectomy, which is a minimally invasive surgery that involves making a few small cuts in the abdomen. Before that, a biopsy should be done to ensure that there are no other lesions. Although it is extremely uncommon at your age and physical condition, it is a routine operation.

I was ready to make a biopsy appointment when I got home. I suddenly thought that I should check the reviews online if I wanted to have surgery. I found that this doctor only had 1.5 stars. In addition, the previous explanation was not clear, and the appointment was also very complicated. I immediately decided to change doctors. Although it might take an extra appointment and the surgery might be postponed, I thought that after twenty years of suffering, a few months would not make a difference.

I found a female doctor with five-star reviews online and waited another two months for the initial appointment (when I called to make the appointment, the staff praised me profusely as soon as they heard I wanted to make an appointment with this doctor). A five-star doctor is a five-star doctor. When she came in to see me, she had already prepared the notes I had put in the system in advance with a small notebook and was already familiar with the situation. She also thanked me for syncing all the medical records in the system in advance and said that she did this the first time she saw a patient (the system seemed to have some problems before and I tried several times after a few weeks before it succeeded).

The doctor went over the options with me again (fibroid removal and hysterectomy) and confirmed my decision to have a hysterectomy. She said that none of her patients who had had a hysterectomy regretted it. She had also had it done herself. Because she was the best expert in Boston at the time, she came to Seattle to have it done by her good friend. When we went out for dinner to celebrate, she felt it was the best decision ever (I immediately imagined some Gray's Ananomy plots). She also recommended Vaginal hysterectomy, which has a smaller wound and faster recovery, instead of Laparoscopic, which was recommended by the previous doctor. She also said that I was not 70 years old and there was no need for a biopsy. I asked the doctor how old my fibroid was, and the doctor said that we usually compare it with a fetus. Yours is 6 weeks old.

I asked the doctor how long I should take off. The doctor said, "Well, you know, people are different. Some people are worried about losing their jobs so they go back to work after 2 weeks. Many people take 4 weeks off. Some people think that since they are here, they should make good use of it. 6 weeks off is not too much. I can write you how long you want to take off." Me: 6 weeks it is!!! My heart: You are worthy of being a 5-star doctor.

After happily discussing various precautions, I made an appointment with her very friendly staff (I had to wait until December to wait for my girlfriend to accompany me. I had zero confidence in the American medical system and didn't expect to be able to make an appointment this year).

I was a little afraid that the new doctor would not allow me to have a hysterectomy because he thought my condition was not serious enough. I prepared for the worst and went to make an appointment with the previous doctor. I didn’t expect that the appointment would go so smoothly. On the way home, I was as happy as if I had a burnout experience and went home on the last day of my job. I immediately sent a message like this, and my joy was beyond words:

"Welcome to the cession for permanent rule"

After the doctor decided on the plan, I informed my manager that I wanted to take sick leave. As expected, this is my dream company. I didn't receive any push back from my manager. After I informed him, I contacted HR and the leave team to start the process.

What surprised me was that I originally thought that only 67% of the payment would be made during the leave period, but the leave team told me that our company would make up for the part covered by the state government, which is 100% pay. It was the icing on the cake. After getting various forms, I sent them to the doctor and the doctor filled them out quickly. Now I am waiting for the surgery to start and the holiday to begin.

My previous impression of hysterecotomy was that “it is a surgery after all. Although I read Professor Dumbledore’s experience post in her hometown, I still think that there are side effects such as accelerated aging and early menopause”, so I didn’t consider this option until I was in my thirties, and my mentality was “I can tolerate these side effects to relieve this worry.” This year, I started to seriously consider this possibility and after talking to several nurses and doctors, I found that the reason I was discouraged before was largely because of the gaslight of “women are incomplete without having children”. The side effects are much smaller than I thought, and I regret not meeting them earlier. Of course, I haven’t experienced this operation yet and cannot be completely sure, but I recommend that women who are troubled by menstruation and have no plans to have children should at least learn about this option, instead of being discouraged as soon as they hear about it (just like when I recommended MAVNI to many people, many people thought it was a big commitment to “join the army” and didn’t learn about it, and then they regretted it after losing the opportunity).

All that is left is to wait patiently for the surgery to begin. Now whenever I plan my trip, I smile from ear to ear knowing that I will no longer have to worry about my period affecting my trip. I will write part 2 of this article when I have recovered enough from the surgery, and I will probably write a long-term review in a year.

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