ENDOMETRIOSIS – or How My Minimally Invasive Procedure Became Major Pelvic Surgery

I failed to mention yesterday that often when patients (and their surgeons) survive Post Op Day 5, they’re feeling much better by Post Op Day 6. As am I, watching the Yankees, hopefully, eek into first place by, hopefully, beating the Red Sox. Finally found the right amount of pain medication to allow me to spend a little more time on my feet and thus get rid of those pesky gas pains.

I don’t remember much about the hours right after my operation last Friday, but I do remember Dr. Abu-Rustum’s kind face smiling as I opened my eyes in the recovery room. “You’re going to be fine. Operation’s all done,” he said, “but we couldn’t do it through the scope – lots of endometriosis, everywhere. We made a small Pfannensteil incision, and once we got exposure, everything came out fine.” I, still being in that morphine-induced state of overall well-being, nodded my head, happy to be alive.

Endometriosis is the abnormal implantation of tissue like the lining of the uterus throughout the abdomen and pelvis, commonly involving the lining of the pelvic cavity, the outside wall of the uterus, the ligaments supporting the uterus, the fallopian tubes and the ovaries the surfaces of the bladder and the rectum. The most common symptom of endometriosis is pelvic pain, painful periods, painful sex. Some forms of female infertility are caused by endometriosis. Since the endometriosis is so much like the inside of the uterus, it responds the same way to hormones secreted by the ovaries throughout the menstrual cycle, producing blood and proliferative tissue, and because it has nowhere to go, scar tissue every month, making everything inside sticky and stuck. That’s what they found when they went in laparoscopically, and in the end, that’s what made them convert to an open procedure.

11 o’clock, or just after, looks like the Yanks are going to lose this one after all. And they fall behind the Red Sox by a game as a three-day long thunderstorm sweeps into town. They say by midnight, it will be raining cats and dogs. Oh well, you can’t always get what you want.