No more pain and tiny scars: how a laparoscopic hysterectomy gives women their lives back
- An operation to remove a uterus, a laparoscopic hysterectomy has a fast recovery time and minimal scarring. That’s why Karen Angel sought one out
- As she writes, she found widespread ignorance about the procedure among doctors. She talks to a woman whose life, like hers, was changed by the keyhole surgery
After five years and eight doctors’ opinions, I finally found a surgeon who said she could remove my problematic uterus using keyhole surgery.
At 1.3kg (2.9 pounds), my uterus, which typically resembles an upside-down pear, was fibroid-laden and had grown to 10 times normal size. I looked about seven months’ pregnant.
The fibroids were non-cancerous and didn’t cause painful symptoms, so my long-time gynaecologist advocated a wait-and-see approach. Unfortunately, over the years of waiting and seeing, my uterus grew too large for all but the most specialised and skilled surgeons to remove.
A hysterectomy is the operation to remove all or part of the uterus. It is commonly done in an open operation in which a surgeon makes a 13cm to 18cm (5-inch to 7-inch) long incision across the abdomen, through which the uterus is removed. Keyhole surgery, also known as laparoscopy, is a minimally invasive operation performed in the abdomen or pelvis using small incisions with the aid of a camera called a laparoscope.
“Many ob-gyns are not even familiar with all the options available,” says Dr Erica Stockwell, a gynaecological surgeon in Orlando, Florida, who says that many patients are often not given all the options. “I could go on and on and on about this.”