Afternoon
It’s day five post-hysterectomy as I write this.
I’m ensconced in my bed with the light pink pregnancy pillow and soft pink blanket that some dear queers got for me to help with healing comfort. The pillow surrounds me like a hug and the blanket creates a barrier between my stomach and the outside world. I took off the last of the waterproof bandages today so all that remains on three of my four incisions are the Steri-strips.
I’m wearing high-waisted, stretchy black underwear and higher-waisted hot pink leggings that are the perfect combination of supportive but soft. Multicoloured lights surround my bed and bookshelf, making my bed feel like a womblike safe haven as I recover from surgery.
I just got in from a walk around the block (1700 steps!) with my mum. I’m feeling restless and irritable today and getting outside helped. I don’t have much of an appetite today but ate a bran muffin, coffee, cottage cheese with grapes and a smoothie. When I eat I get painful stomach cramps as the food makes its way through my digestive system which disturbs the inner trauma left behind from excising endometriosis and removing my uterus, Fallopian tubes, and cervix. I have to wait until a fart or poop is hovering on the precipice and just allow it to come out, without pushing or bearing down. There are a lot of belly cramps.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to say, how to capture the experience of having a hysterectomy to best represent it or form a neat little sliver of content for the newsletter. But I’m still in it. It’s messy. It’s unfinished.
~
Bedtime
It’s been a down day. One of my uterusless pals told me that it’s not uncommon to feel a post-surgical dip around days three to five.
I can’t even explain what it feels like. Being here right now.
I’m pleasantly surprised with how my recovery’s been going compared to my excision surgery in 2017. I only threw up once post-surgery and have had little-to-no nausea. I’ve pooped every day except for day two, but went twice on day three. My stool softener is a powder I can mix into anything so I put it in with my coffee to really get things moving.
I know healing isn’t linear. That I’m doing great. That it could be a lot worse. That I could be constipated and plugged up for five days instead of emptying out my rectum with semi-regularity. That I could be nauseated and in severe pain and not sleeping well. I know I’m incredibly fortunate to have my mother staying with me and taking care of things like food and chores while I rest.
I spent nearly four hours this afternoon in bed watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and dozing on and off.
Bedtime
I fell asleep writing last night. Sometimes the tiredness just comes up on you and takes you by surprise. It can also creep up slowly, spreading from your head down the rest of your body like that “crack an egg on your head and the yolk is running down, the yolk is running down” game everyone played in elementary school.
My mood was much better today. I had another shower and the rash on my butt is clearing up. I stopped wearing pads on Monday because I really wasn’t bleeding that much, a feat for someone who spots for 7-10 days if I fuck up my hormone medication. I’ll be staying on the pill at least until my post-op appointment in February so I have some time to figure out what the best course of action for me is. At least I don’t have a uterus whose lining can be shed through my puss whenever it feels like it. Now I have a vaginal canal that culminates in a vaginal cuff, AKA a closure at the top of the vagina where the cervix once was.
I just Googled “vaginal cuff” and kind of wish I hadn’t because now I’m terrified of coughing, sneezing or pooping my vagina inside-out but also the orgy I was hoping to have for my birthday might be too soon? There are many ways of experiencing pleasure that don’t involve putting things in my pussy.
I can’t put anything inside my vagina for a minimum of eight weeks. Maybe I should have had a pre-hysterectomy orgy instead of a post-hyst orgy. Hindsight is 20/20 of course. I had a Boot the Ute Charcute farewell dinner with a charcuterus and a cervix cake with my fave peeps, what’s better than that?!
My hips are sore.
I went for an adventure to my fartner’s earlier today to test out my stamina in a safe space. It went pretty well, but it’s the first day I didn’t lie down for 2-4 hours in the afternoon — just an hour today after my field trip.
I’m having a pain in my inner left thigh that I’m worried could be a blood clot but is probably a cramp. Ever since reading up on ways you can promote vaginal cuff dehiscence (the improper closing of the wound), I feel suddenly exposed and sore. Every move feels like burst stitches or a prolapse waiting to happen.
Morning
I’m one-week post-op this morning. It’s hard to believe this time last week I was on the operating table. It blows my mind that you can have SO much buildup to something, so much anxiety and anticipation and concerns and questions and hope and growth and then that thing happens and it’s just … done. And you have to deal with the aftermath.
What’s probably a pretty regular day for my surgeons and the surgical team is the transition point of before and after for me. Before being With Uterus, After being Without.
I wore my pink beanie all the way into the OR without even realizing it until one of the nurses looked up and said “Oh! Love the hat!” Oops. I put it into a bag with my black slides as RuPaul played over the speakers, per my request.
“Did you watch the season 15 premiere?!” My surgeon, nurse and I are discussing our fave entrances of the latest iteration of Drag Race as two anesthesiologists put ECG pads on my chest and prepare the meds that will lull me to sleep. The three nurses and three surgical fellows who will be part of my laparoscopy surround the table as one of them presents my case and the procedures they’ll perform — a laparoscopic total hysterectomy, salpingectomy, and excision of endometriosis. I feel like I’m on Grey’s Anatomy and I wonder what they’ll talk about as they’re removing my uterus. Is one of them having an affair with another surgeon in the hospital? Who slept with who in the on-call room and who got caught?!
My feet are bouncing to “Sissy That Walk” as they put the oxygen mask over my face to saturate my blood before they pump it full of drugs.
Away we go.
Two faces above me telling me we’re all done, it went great.
Recovery room.
Cups of water.
IV pain meds.
A peach popsicle.
Checking my incisions.
My bed doesn’t line up with the colour blocks on the floor, I’m in the recovery bay crooked. I ask the nurse if she can straighten me out because it’s driving me crazy.
She laughs.
I miss my Nanna.
Orange jello.
More water.
More pain meds.
Ginger ale.
Hilarious jokes.
Sending updates.
Put my nose rings back in.
Try to text and fail miserably.
Pics for posterity.
I can go home once I pee.
Stand up.
No undies, there’s a bit of blood on the pee pad underneath me, but not much.
Walk to the bathroom with my IV pole.
I feel like I’m in a dream.
Press my forearm up against the wall and the counter beside me and stare at the toilet paper dispenser to make sure I’m really here and not about to pee in my bed.
Nothing feels real.
The pee stings. Probably from the catheter. I’m afraid to bear down so I just let it trickle out of me into the measuring cup tucked underneath the toilet seat. It’s hella dark. I’ve passed the urine test by filling it over 100ml. Most people do 20-60 the nurse says.
Overachiever.
Back to my bed.
The nurse helps me into a pair of white hospital undies and affixes a pad to the inner gusset.
Pull them up over the four bandages adorning my abdomen.
It’s time to go home.
Without a uterus.
~
That was a week ago.
The healing process is going much better than I was anticipating, which speaks to the skill of my surgeon(s).
The first few days are a blur.
Both of my parents came. They got me groceries and made food to put in the freezer. My fartner helped me shower on Saturday morning and fuck it felt good to wash my butt crack.
The pain has been quite manageable and I’ve been sleeping away good chunks of the afternoon until today.
My belly is tender, and I feel cramps or twinges of pain every once in a while.
The thought of having penetrative sex terrifies me, as does the pelvic contractions of an orgasm if I masturbate. I’m interested to see where this will take me as I explore feeling good for the sake of feeling it without the expectation of orgasm. I want to feel hands over my entire body, rubbing softly and slowly and grazing my tender spots and helping me feel alive again.
My mum is leaving tomorrow and I’m feeling ready to move on to the next stage of healing, whatever that looks like.
Having friends come and check on me every day, moving about a bit more, working on some freelance projects, writing, going for walks, exploring my desires and sexuality under a uterusless lens.
I feel like as the physical affects of surgery start to lessen, the emotional ones will start to pop up, like bubbles in a pot of boiling water.
It feels correct that I removed my uterus.
I don’t care if they find adenomyosis in it or not - I don’t want it anymore. I’ve carried the burden of a uterus through pain after agonizing pain, emergency room visits and surgeries, doctors who told me I “might want kids one day,” lost jobs and lost relationships, losing myself and putting me back together.
It feels so correct that it’s gone.
I have to poop.