Same Bat Channel, New Bat Time

Wednesday's surgery went ahead as scheduled. When I came out of surgery, I was told that my doctor had removed some scar tissue, and quite a bit of retained placenta. They gave me the photos from the hysteroscope, which I've included below, along with a comparison photo of my own uterus, in a "clean" state after my very first operative hysteroscopy. If you don't want to see the inside of my uterus, look away now!

Clean uterus in 2016

Here are two from yesterday:

Left uterus -retained POC & scar tissue

Right uterus -retained POC & scar tissue

This leads me to ask my body: "What is up why you, hmmm? How is it that you hold on to placentas for so long, but you can't hold on to the babies in them long enough? What the heck did I do or not do to you to make this happen every time? WFT, body?"

Probably not the most helpful conversation I've ever had. I'm trying really hard to be hopeful that this worked and will be worthwhile.

I'm not sure if it was because this surgery was more extensive, or because my body is just tired, but I'm in more pain this time that usual. I've been really lucky that with all my past surgeries, I've had some cramping, and I've felt like someone used a serrated-edged, 8" diameter speculum to access my cervix/uterus, but I haven't had much pain beyond that. This time is different. My vagina is really raw and unhappy, my cervix burns, and my uterus keeps sending off stabbing pains and gnarly cramps. I guess that's to be expected and I should be really happy that it wasn't the case before!

Next steps: follow up visit and removal of the stent on Tuesday. We'll need to discuss the pathology for what was found in my uterus, the cultures from the biopsy last week, tubal patency, and what comes next. Exciting, no?

Oh and one final note to the surgery center: If you give patients specimen cups with their name, age, and gender, and have them give samples in the bathroom so you can confirm there is no pregnancy, it's probably unwise to throw the empty but labeled cup and the test stick into the open trashcan next to the sink in the bathroom. Because I looked down while washing my hands, I now know more than I want to about the other woman getting a hysteroscopy that day.