After arming myself with lots of online reading (thanks google!), I rolled up for my appointment with the gynaecological and pelvic specialist (I'll refer to as Dr B) to whom my GP had referred me.
I turn up a few minutes earlier than my 3.45 pm appointment only to find that they'd deliberately allowed a 15 minute window for processing paperwork (which took only 5 minutes) so I was left waiting till 4.00 pm before the said specialist came out of his office to call my name.
I had taken the liberty of looking Dr B up on the net, finding only a profile on the website for the clinic and a photo of his face. At least there were no bad "reviews" and I also noted that he worked overseas in Italy. While none of this was terribly comforting, meeting him in person was possibly less so. There is no other way to put it other than he looked a little like Tweedle-dum, not in an unkind way, just that he was almost perfectly spherical and rather short.
Perhaps it was always part of the plan but after asking me a few questions about why I was there (even though my documents were handed over prior to my being called to his office) he suggested I should have a CT scan. I pointed him to the scans which were open on his desk and the findings letter which was sitting underneath the referral letter. He gave a perfunctory look at the scans and started talking about the need for surgery. While I was keeping an open mind, it was almost with relief that he told me that he wasn't able to operate at the moment due to having had a heart attack at the end of last year and he was going to refer me to his partner in the practice, Dr C. Almost as an afterthought reassurance that he wasn't handing me over to a complete novice, his next comment before picking up the phone to call her, was to mention that his actual specialty was fixing other surgeons' mistakes and that Dr C was an excellent specialist in this area of surgery.
When she came in, Dr C reminded me of a Christmas elf. She was small, delicate and friendly. Unlike Dr B, she offered me her hand to shake and I'm pleased to note, it was a firm shake - good start! Although we began our chat in Dr B's office, once I seemed to be warming to her, she invited me into her own office and we started the consultation all over again.
I have to say, having done all the reading I had, I was determined to ask all the questions I needed to satisfy myself that this person knew what s/he was doing. Her first order of business was to show me what I was dealing with. She opened up her computer and brought up some full colour shots of various fibroids she had removed recently. (She did apologise but she hadn't had time to upload her latest two as she'd been too busy. She reminded me a lot of myself at this point.) The first one was impressively almost twice the size of mine, there were ones with uterus attached and without, with & without ovaries and ones where they were embedded in the wall. I'm assuming at this stage that mine is also going to end up in this gallery and although I have seen enough, she insists on showing me one last one. I guess it's good to know that she is passionate about her work.
We are then into discussing my options and her recommendation then filling in medical history details and talking through the procedure (which I should mention now is called a "subtotal hysterectomy" which is removing the uterus but leaving the ovaries and cervix intact. It appears from the CT scan that this fibroid is attached to the wall of my uterus and as I am unlikely to want to retain this for child-bearing purposes, they are removing it as well.
Although it is a very standard procedure, she has to outline the risks: the possibility that they may damage my intestine and I could end up with a colostomy bag; the possibility of heavy bleeding so I have to sign a consent form for a blood transfusion should I need it; one last thing, if they find there is a problem with my ovaries or cervix when they get in there, then I have consented for them to take those out as well, better than going under again I guess...
I try to imagine being in recovery for such a long time following this procedure and I can't. I don't think I've even had a holiday this long before so it will be interesting - perhaps an opportunity to watch all of those 2000 DVDs in my library!
Keep you posted!
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