Hysterectomy and debulking recovery questions???

Hi Jody, welcome to the "club."  If you're looking for answers, you've come to the right place.  I'm Eldri, 63, in Green Bay, WI and before my surgery I couldn't WALK eight miles much less run them - LOL!

I can tell you my experience but my total hysterectomy was done with a DiVinci robot and as far as they could tell, it hadn't spread beyond the top of my cervix.  I was Stage II, Grade 3 (UPSC).

I had the surgery in the afternoon and "danced" out of the hospital the next morning.  I didn't have to take any of the pain medication at all.  It took a few days for the gas they had pumped into me to subside.

Regarding the intubation - my throat was better in a few days.  I know there are other ladies on here who had more extensive surgery as you did who can answer those questions better than me - they'll be here later in the day.

Love,

Eldri

I had TAH BSO 6 months ago and dont remember a lot of gas or any coughing, I was constipated due to the pain drugs they gave me. I was in the hospital 3 days and stopped pain drugs when I left. I am stage 3C grade 3 serous and healed quickly from the surgery.

I stopped the pain pills too late (about 4 days after I got home from my 6 day hospital stay).  I'd had my gallbladder and appendix removed (gallstones were found in my CT scan), as well as the cancer in my uterus, both ovaries, omentum, and small intestine.  The pain pills (Percocet) made me majorly constipated and I wished I'd gotten off of them sooner.  Eating apples eventually helped with the constipation.  I had my surgery in May, 2010, and I don't recall how long the gas and cough lasted. I'm not sure if I even had diarrhea.  I didn't have as much surgery to my intestine as you did, though.  When I was young, I worked in a maternity hospital and I remember the nurses telling patients who'd had abdominal surgery that the gas usually lasts for about 3 days. I would think it might be longer for surgery of the intestine itself.  I had incisional hernia surgery a couple of years after my cancer surgery, and the surgeon actually pumped me full of gas when he did my surgery laparoscopically.  I had more pain in the intestines on the opposite side than I did on the side where the mesh repair was done.  I'm not sure what the reason for that was, if the surgeon needed to separate the intestines, or if he did it so he could see better, or if he did it for some other reason.

 Anyway, if you're in a lot of pain and still having gas, it might be from constipation.  I would think a week after surgery is too long to be having gas from the procedure itself, but I'm not a doctor or a nurse.  Do you have a follow up appointment with your doctor soon?  If not, you might want to put a call in to his office and ask these questions. 

Hope you're feeling a lot better soon.  Take it easy and give yourself time to heal. I had stage IVb cancer because my cancer had gone out of the pelvis.  Don't be too surprised if you're told that when you have your follow up appointment. I never had a clue that I was that sick.  I've been fine ever since surgery and chemo.