Okay so I had the cyst excised this morning. I hated it. I don’t know why, God knows I have been through worse. But everything from the position (lying on my stomach with my head turned sideways) to the anesthetic (multiple shots in my scalp) to the sounds (crunching) to the smells (burning) – horrible. No pain but by the time I was done I had the shakes. I did look at the cyst, which was pretty cool to be honest. Anyhow I’m glad it’s over!
Before I did that, I had my pre-surgical consult at Lankenau. I really like the doc who will be doing the rectocele surgery. He seems competent and we laughed about some stuff and I felt comfortable with him.
Turns out the procedure is inpatient, which I didn’t realize. I have never had an inpatient surgical procedure before. (Well, my emergency surgery for my ruptured ectopic might have been, I can’t remember. But not a planned one.) I haven’t met with the doctor doing the butthole surgery (yeah, that’s what I’m calling it) yet for a pre-op so I won’t have details on that. This will all be about the rectocele repair. This doctor’s name is Dr. Berger.
The procedure for the rectocele repair will take around 40 minutes, during which time he will go in and remove the excess skin that has been stretched. Here’s an illustration so you can see what I mean:
Then he will stitch me inside and presumably dust off his hands, nod approvingly at his work, and bid my vag a good day, sir.
I will have packing in my vagina to keep pressure on the stitches as well as a catheter, They’ll keep me under observation overnight and then take out the packing and the catheter the next day and I should be cleared to go home mid-morning. Dr. Berger says the pain will be about the same as with episiotomy stitches – which I never had to have, but which as a doula I am familiar with. It will be important to manage the pain without constipating me, which will be a challenge. 😬 I will probably have bleeding for 4 weeks and also can’t have sex for that amount of time.
I think that covers it as far as the info I have so far.
It’s funny, after I posted my last blog I thought, maybe this is too far. Maybe I should keep this to myself. I want to help other people but maybe the people in my life just don’t want to know this much about what is going on with my nether regions.
Since then I had one good friend comment on Facebook that she was sure this info would be helpful to others facing the same thing, and another friend reach out to me because she has been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer and went through my old blogs from when I had cancer and could relate to them. So I feel like the universe is saying to press on.
Keep me in the light, friends who are reading this and aren’t put off by my openness. I am so grateful for you. ❤️
complikated 