Personal Laparoscoy Stories
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Megan's Story: I had my first laparoscopy when I was fourteen years old. It was a fairly simple thing, but very scary for me at that age. I arrived at the hospital in the early morning. I was taken to a room to prepare. In that room I was given a bed and a gown. I waited there until they could take me to the pre operative area. In that room there were several other beds along the wall. I was then given an IV and given some pre medication to deal with my anxiety. They then rolled me into a large bright room with several people in it. I don't remember anything after that until I woke up in recovery. I had an air mask on my face and blankets on (because my body had gone into shock and I was shivering). In that room they gave me morphine. When I was more awake they took me to the room I started out in. I was very sick to my stomach due to the anesthesia and had a lot of pain from my incisions. The nurses would give me shots to control this. When my pain was under control enough that I thought I could handle the ride home I was released. The next two days entailed a lot of sleeping and pain pills, but I was up and doing my normal activities within a week. Eily's Story: Now this was a while ago (7 years ago) so things may have changed since then but here is my story. I was 17 and have always had very bad periods. I used to think that I was weird because I had always heard that your periods should get better as you get older, but mine had gotten worse. One month I was having so much pain I started crying and didn't know what to do. I went to my Dr. and he sent me to the Ob/GYN. She said that all my symptoms sounded like endo but I was too young for it. So she didn't know what else to do after trying a few things so we had a lap. IT was just to explore and see what we could find. Well, you first go to have blood work done and answer lots of questions, I recommend telling them you get motion sickness so they give you meds to help with the nausea that sometimes accompanies anesthesia. On "lap day" you go to the hospital a few hours before surgery to get ready and it is not bad. I went into a pre-op room and they gave me some meds to help me sleep. The surgery did find that I had endo spread everywhere so that took longer than had expected. The incision is small, in my belly button that now you can't even see, and since they had to do some other work for the endo I have a few more small scars but again so very small. The recoup was a little more than they had said, I think I was extremely sore for about 5 days and walking around soon after that. There is the possibility of bleeding afterwards so don't let that freak you out, they forgot to tell me that part. But again, it sounds much worse than what it really is and as I have learned, it is sooooo important to take care of your body.
During my second surgery I was also having my gallbladder out, so I was essentially having two surgeries in one sitting. I was given stockings to wear on my legs. And I went through all the stuff I described for my first surgery. When I woke up I had pumps on my legs that would contract every so often to help w/ clotting. It took me a full day to be able to urinate and I had to stay overnight b/c of that. My pain was much worse with that surgery, but it entailed much more than the first.
Tess' Story:
It was a cold January morning, when I headed off to Crozer Medical Center. My husband Greg drove, and we were both very nervous – the lap had been deemed necessary due to overwhelming pain near the site of my left ovary, and heavy bleeding/clotting. We were afraid – what would they find? Cancer? I had a pretty rotten history of debilitating pain with my period, since the age of 9. During my early teens, I bled perhaps three times a year, until I was put on birth control. Then, I bled twice a month! I had cramps, but usually nothing overly severe – until I hit 20. The pain gradually increased over time, until, at 28, I was almost beyond myself. Every month, or every other month (I was off BC by that point, and my periods were very erratic), I would have literally crippling pain on my left side, severe enough to make me nauseous. The bleeding was severe, to the point of having to change a tampon every half hour. It was at this point that I called my gynaecologist and arranged an appointment to figure out exactly what was going on. He wasn’t overly concerned, but we did an endometrial biopsy to rule out cancer, and we decided to have an exploratory lap. Four weeks later, I was on my way!
Once at the Castle, we were ushered into the short procedure unit, where I was given my gorgeously sexy gown. That thing got the pulse racing…not!
Greg was taking digital pics throughout the whole episode, and I’ve included some here. Heehee! I was asked for basic information (name, SS#, why I was here etc).
After a longer wait than we expected – my surgeon was dragged into an emergency surgery – I was wheeled off after a hug from Greg.
Next thing, I was back in the SP room! My doctor came in again (he’d already talked to me whilst I was in recovery – naturally I didn’t retain a word he said!), and told us what he’d found:
Endometriosis! And adhesions, no less! My right ovary also "sits" in a rather odd fashion – the ligament is virtually non-elastic, and it was just "hanging" there. The doc laser-zapped the endo, to the best he could.
He also suspected adenomyosis, based upon the shape and odd colour (relatively odd) of my uterus.
He showed us the pictures he’d taken, and Greg took pictures of the original images. Afterwards, I felt very little pain at all….I didn’t take anything stronger than Motrin. I was a little dizzy, and very weak, but all was well. After about two hours in the SP room, I was allowed to go home.
The whole thing was a breeze – I stayed off from work for the remainder of the week (the procedure was on the Monday), but that was very conservative apparently.
I was able to drive almost immediately, and I was able to resume normal activity as soon as I felt up to it. I did have a few issues with the lower incision "opening" a little, but this was no big deal – a quick reseal with a steristrip sorted it out.
As far as the lap goes…that’s it!
The second part of the story follows…"The Road To Hysterectomy".
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