Cyst and fibroid (surprise!)

[ireneo]

I've been reading and gathering information since I was told I had a 7 cm cyst on my left ovary. And I thought the swelling (hands, feet and abdomen) was just from my silly heart. So I saw the gyn doc today. First thing she said was the 9 cm cyst. What! Well, that included the ovary. Whew. Then she said I have a plum-sized fibroid in my uterus. Hey, nobody mentioned that. Bottom line is I'll end up with a full hysterectomy. No need to take everything out and leave a non-functioning right ovary there to stir up trouble (maybe) later on. Looks like surgery will happen in Feb. That's a good time - get through the holidays, finish up at my job and nothing exciting happens in Feb. anyway. Nice time to kick back and recover. My question is - any idea how long it takes to do the surgery? Probably incision, not laparoscopy. Too much to remove. And what recovery time? 6 weeks maybe? Just curious. Yes, they'll freeze and test the cyst once they take it out but I'm not going to worry about that right now. The odds are on my side - no gyn problems in  my life, no family history.

[ireneo]

Thank you for the information. I've had surgeries before but I was a lot younger. Never had any problems with them. The catheter ablations on my heart were not true surgeries - more like procedures. I was drugged, they ran catheters up to my heart and fried bits and pieces. I recovered just fine from those too.

Can't walk up the stairs, huh? We live in a split level house so I have at least a few stairs to walk to get up to the main part of the house. I don't mind not driving (even though I enjoy it as a rule). During Feb. the weather will be lousy and I won't have the urge to get out so much. And if I'm not at work I won't be tempted to lift things (like 50lb sacks of feed or 45 lb beavers).

I have a couple of months to wait so I think I'll focus on toning up, getting more in shape. I've let things slide the past few months. I've read that if your muscle tone is good and you're moderately healthy, you snap back quicker. I'm no poster child for the gym but I'm in OK shape for my advanced age LOL. Again, thank you. My husband will be happy to hear too.

[Angie_Lou]

Hi Ireneo,

Should have pulled out my report before writing to you, but I had a full hysterectomy (beautiful incision) and I think I was in surgery for about 3 hours.  Mind you, they removed my omentum, did debulking and a lot of scraping up of the cancer I had throughout my pelvic area (against my colon and on my diaphram...)

So, you will probably be out of surgery a lot sooner than I was.  Recovery time really depends on how well you bounce back from surgeries.  I was released from the hospital three days after surgery, and feeling pretty good (drugs helped.)  The normal recovery time doctor give is 6 weeks, with no stair climbing or lifting anything over 10 lbs for the 1st two weeks.  And, no driving for those 1st two weeks, either.  So, take advantage of others chauffeuring you around.

It's nice you can wait until after the Holidays are over.  I wish you a speedy recovery at that time.  Angie