Post Surgery Experience Continued

9/8 /13- 9/13/13

Not much to really report in these days. All has been going pretty well. I finally went back to work and I've been pleasantly surprised as I really thought the balloon-catheter was going to be extremely uncomfortable. 

I have had some extreme cervical mucus (CM) and every once in a while I get the sensation of something being there. So see my note at the bottom of the page about this in more detail.

9/8/13 3Days After Surgery: I felt pretty good all day. My bm's have gone back to "my normal." We went to my parent's house for a BBQ. By the time we left I was having a little bit of cramping, so when I got home I took ibuprofen for pain relief. I still had some discomfort when I went to bed so I took Demerol.

9/9/13 4Days After Surgery: My final day off from work. I cleaned the house and got everything in order for the week. Overall feeling extremely well. I took one dose of ibuprofen in the afternoon - no pain/cramping but I figured it couldn't hurt and could help with the inflammation going on in my uterus.

9/10/13 5Days After Surgery: I went back to work at 2:30PM for a half-day. I was nervous because I'm up walking around on my feet all day long at work. Everything went smooth.

9/11/13 6Days After Surgery: This morning was my last dose of doxycycline (antibiotic), and I was glad to be done with it as doxy upsets my stomach. I worked all day today. Had some slight cramping in the late afternoon so I took ibuprofen. When I got home from work my belly was upset. I tried to go to bed but I was up off and on for 2 hours with some episodes of diarrhea. I was finally able to go to sleep and slept through the night.

9/12/13 7Days After Surgery: When I woke up my belly was still upset, some more loose-stools, some minor cramping this morning. Even with the cramps, I felt better than I did the night before. Again, working all day. My belly pain and cramping went away by mid-morning. All was well while at work. When I was driving home from work I started to get emotional/teary-eyed and overall just in a bad mood - no known reason.

9/13/13 8Days After Surgery: When I woke up today I was still emotional and very teary-eyed on my drive to work. Again at work all day and everything was good at work. Overall mood-wise I was back to myself by the end of the day. When I got home, I had cramping at bedtime. I couldn't find a comfortable position so I ended up taking some Demerol. This is the first time I've had anything stronger than ibuprofen in 4 days.


Other:
Most of the time I don't notice the balloon-catheter at all. There are some times when I notice it. It's hard to describe the feeling as it's not painful and not really uncomfortable, just there. It's kind of like feeling something is stuck at the back of the vagina (obviously right? ha) or like pressure at the urethra (pee hole), feeling like I need to pee - although I don't. It's really more of a nuisance. Typically I can do some pelvic thrusting or pelvic lifts to get this "kink" worked out. Sometimes if I go pee or even if I don't pee but wipe, the feeling dissipates.

Cervical Mucus
The first couple of days after surgery I noticed my pads and when I wiped the tp would be pretty moist/wet. I'm fairly certain that this really was the fluid they used during the surgery draining, especially since I was having the mini-queef feeling when I would pee.  However this only lasted a couple of days. After that stopped, I started to notice that my pads and tp were still moist but looked more like a creamy/lotion type of fluid that lasted for 3 days (9/7 - 9/9). I realized this was actually CM on 9/10/13 as I had EWCM (egg-white cervical mucus). My CM has been on overdrive and I attribute this to the Premarin (estrogen) that I've been taking. See my chart pic below to see my CM notes. I also have ****'s under menses starting the day of my surgery @ CD7. The ****'s represent bleeding. It has not been anything more than what I consider Light flow.

Post Surgery Experience

9/5 /13- 9/7/13
A balloon catheter was placed in my uterus during the surgery and will be removed in two weeks. I was prescribed Demerol, Toradol and Ibuprofen for pain. Toradol and Ibuprofen aren't supposed to be taken together, so when I switch to Ibuprofen I have to wean myself off of Toradol. I also am taking Doxycycline (antibiotic) twice a day and Premarin (estrogen) daily for 1month.

9/5/13 Surgery Day:
I had a little bit of pressure in my vag/uterine area that I can only describe as a pressure similar to when you're a kid riding a bicycle and you hit your vag on the top bar of the bike. It's like that type of throbbing/pulsating once the initial shock wears off. I don't know if this pressure was pain or just the area really kind of throbbing or if it was the cervical block wearing off. It only lasted the day of the surgery and wasn't really painful at all. Just noticeable. I did however continue to take Demerol every 4-6hours.

Peeing was strange at first. Everything was fine until the end of the pee. Then it was like some excess air/fluid being released. I describe this as a mini-queef-like experience. This happened every time I peed.

I didn't sleep very well the night of my surgery. All of the pain meds caused me to feel nauseous (despite taking nausea meds), so I woke up and dry heaved a bit. I did have some cramping, nothing too bad. Honestly, I think the cramping might have been enhanced by my bowels. I'm a normal two-a-dayer and the anesthesia + narcs can cause some slowing of the bowels and constipation, so I know I was probably a little "backed up" for me.

9/6/13 1Day After Surgery:
After dry heaving (above) I went back to sleep for a bit. I woke up again around 4:30AM from cramps (which I was laying on my stomach when I woke up) so I got up and took some more Demerol. I went back to sleep and woke up around 9AM. I felt fine most of the morning, but started to notice a little pressure so I took some Toradol around 12:30PM. I fell asleep and woke back up in the middle of the afternoon (I think I was just tired from not sleeping well during the night). I felt great the rest of the day. Peeing I still had that same mini-queef experience I describe above. At one point I described it to DH as feeling like having "trapped air" in there, to which I ended up laughing hysterically at because I do, in fact, have trapped air up there :D !!! I ended up taking Demerol before bedtime and slept all through the night. Still no BM today, so I'm still attributing some of the cramping to my bowels.

9/7/13 2Days After Surgery:
I woke up at 8AM and finally a bm! I was nervous at first about this, so I tried my best not to "push". I felt so great today that I didn't even take any pain meds. Around noon I did take some more Toradol as I was feeling a little bit of pressure and I wanted to see if the Toradol was what made me sleepy yesterday or not. No afternoon nap so I'm saying Toradol does not cause drowsiness. Peeing is better today, no more of that mini-queef feeling. I will say that most of the day I have been able to tell that something is off down there. It's like a dull feeling...kind of like the dull pressure a uti causes you to feel. Kind of like you have to pee, but you don't really have to pee.  No cramping today so far and again another bm at 3PM.

Operative Hysteroscopy: Surgery Day!

Thursday 9/5/13: Surgery Day!
I woke up around 5:45AM, quickly showered and then took my pre-op meds. I got dressed and then woke DH up. Last time I had a procedure done we were almost late because the meds knocked me out and DH didn't wake up to his alarm! We left the house at 7AM.

I arrived at my RE's office a little before my arrival time of 7:45AM and was taken back to the recovery room. First they had me give a urine sample so a hpt could be done. Considering I was at cd7 this is ludicrous, but I understand they have to do it for their own liability. I didn't think I was going to be able to pee, but finally I was able to get a little bit out. 

Next I changed into a hospital gown, socks and a hat. Then I was hooked up to some monitors. The nurse verified what meds I had taken that morning and then gave me a shot of toradol. She then started an IV and we waited for RE to arrive. The nurse walked me to the operating room and got me situated onto the table. I remember RE coming in and getting stuff set up as well as administering a cervical block. I don't remember much after this as whatever meds they pushed pretty well knocked me out. I do remember coming to a little bit and they were discussing my bladder being in the way. I remember the nurse laughing a little bit and saying "she only gave me a little sample for the hcg test." I guess from there they drained my bladder for me. My bladder apologizes for being shy earlier, sorry staff as that's one more thing you had to encounter! Next thing I remember is being woke up and I moved over to the transport bed and was wheeled back to the recovery room I originally started in.

DH said I was only in the procedure room for 45minutes tops. I think they kept me in recovery for about an hour afterwards. As I finally started to really wake up, the nurse came in and asked if I wanted anything. I asked for water. I drank a little bit of it and then continued to rest. Finally the nurse came back in and said I could get dressed and would be able to leave. She told me that I might have to pee a lot as she had administered Lasix (water retention relief med). Apparently this is to help expel excess fluids that they use during the procedure. I managed to get dressed on my own and dh & I headed home.

I called both of my parents on my way home and let them know that all had went well and I was headed home. I don't remember much from the rest of the day as I was pretty drowsy and the pain meds had me pretty sedated.

My 2wk follow-up apt is scheduled for 9/20/13.

3. Saline-Sonogram Comparison

My Saline-Sonogram Pictures: My uterus is clearly separated into two areas. There should not be two separate black areas.

 

Normal Saline Sonogram picture. The uterus visualized below is one solid black area, no separation.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Hysteroscopy Comparison

This is what my uterus looks like on a hysteroscopy exam.

The next two pics are what a normal uterus looks like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

My uterus zoomed in on the hysteroscopy:

 

 Normal septum appearance on a hysteroscopy:

 

 

 

 

 

1. Uterine Anomalies for Reference

Pictures of common types of uterine anomalies/malformations.

 

My saline-sonogram and hysteroscopy both say I have what's considered a Subseptate Uterus (#3). I had a MRI done, no septum was visualized but it did say I had a slight Arcuate (#2) uterus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the saline-sonogram & hysteroscopy I'm categorized into V Septate (b) Partial.

The MRI categorizes me into VI Arcuate.

 

From my hysteroscopy pictures, we know that my "septum" is not visualized as a normal septum, so we still aren't entirely sure what we're dealing with (it could be some sort of scar tissue), but we're terming it a septum.

This picture is how I visualize my WTF septum. This is an asymmetrical uterine septum. It's very rare and there isn't a whole lot of information about it on the internet. I'm pretty sure mine isn't exactly like an asymmetrical septum -- if you do google it I don't have any of the symptoms it lists for this. But I obviously have some strange tissue/septum thingy in the way as my right fallopian tube entrance can not be visualized on the hysteroscopy.

 

 

 

Sorry for the bad paintshop, I'm limited on a laptop with my art skillz!