The Journey From Trauma to Peace

It’s been 18 years since my botched hysterectomy and pelvic repair surgery. This anniversary always guts me and brings me to my knees to sit with Jesus for a while. It’s not easier… it’s just different now. I’ve come to a deep abiding peace about the trauma that shifted me into a chronic pain life and can still see God’s good plans throughout. It wasn’t always this way for me. I was bitter and angry for a long time. Grieving the life I thought I would be living was hard.

When my youngest son was born in January of 2008, he came fast and furiously. I kinda joke that “he pulled everything out right along with him”. It wasn’t his fault. He has no blame in this. But, after giving birth to my sixth child vaginally, and having undiagnosed hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, my pelvic floor just came undone and fell apart. My bladder, rectum, and uterus all prolapsed and I was in agony almost immediately. My obgyn confirmed that we were done having babies and the only “fix” for my body was a hysterectomy with additional repairs – and this needed to be done by a specialist, a urogynecologist (urogyn).

I didn’t realize until later that I was referred to this specific specialist because one of the obgyn’s in the practice was hoping to be invited to scrub in and learn some of the latest laser techniques. This was a new doctor in town who was supposedly using the latest and greatest techniques and technologies. However, he didn’t use anything new or amazing and the original obgyn from the practice was never invited to join in. After several months of testing and planning we scheduled the surgery.

At five months postpartum, I was still breastfeeding my youngest. I made sure to clear every medication with all the docs to ensure that my baby was safe to consume my pumped milk until I was able to breastfeed again after surgery. So, I was unprepared when the head of the urogyn practice popped in as I was pumping in the preop area and she reacted in utter shock. I remember her saying something to the effect of doctors usually waiting until the baby was weaned to do this surgery, but she was sure it would be fine. I was already nervous and just chalked up the sinking in the pit of my stomach to the nerves. I look back now and wish I had asked her to clarify and then called everything off.

But, honestly my husband and I had been waiting these five months and praying for healing and a restoration of our physical intimacy without the excruciating pain it caused. This was supposed to be the surgery that brought us into the next phase of our marriage – where we were done having babies and could enjoy marital intimacy without having to think of any further babies. Our family was full and we were ready to move into the next chapter with no more little feet joining us.

I woke up from surgery feeling like my insides had been through a meat grinder. We stayed overnight and I was released to go home the next morning. I was in awful pain. I figured it was just surgery pain and the next week would begin to bring healing and our new life. Oh how wrong I was! Several days after surgery I was to remove the urinary catheter on my own. I couldn’t wait to not have that bag and tubing! And then… nothing… I could NOT void! More pain. I could not even dribble a tiny bit to empty my bladder. And the longer we waited, the worse it got. We tried every trick in the book for several hours. My poor husband took me to our local hospital (we were 2 hours from the specialist) screaming in pain. I just wanted to go be with Jesus at this point. And our small local hospital just wasn’t prepared for, nor did they understand, the complicated circumstances I was in. After a couple more hours, they put in a new catheter and sent me home to follow up the next week with the urogyn.

It would be six full weeks until the second surgery to release the bladder sling that was secured too high and tight and do vaginal mesh excision. I was taught to self-catheterize so that I didn’t have the constant bag everywhere and to reduce the infection risk. The head of the practice once again scrubbed in for the surgery. This one was outpatient and we went home that afternoon.

What shocked my husband and I was that my urogyn literally disappeared before the six week post op appointment from that second repair surgery. The day of my postop appiontment, I was met by the practice owner and advised that he had left the practice and she would be happy to forward all my records to another urogyn that was better equipped to handle my ongoing care. We were abandoned and left trying to move forward without any further support.

We prayed and wrestled with how to move forward – did we seek legal counsel, did we report him to the boards, what other options were open? I didn’t want to go repeat our painful story to others and have to prove the trauma happened the way it did. I just wanted it to go away. Nothing felt right and we just wanted to live our lives and find healing. So, we buried the trauma and just moved on. We spent the next several years navigating my constant pelvic pressure and pain while raising our little ones.

When our youngest was a year old, we sought further medical intervention for the ongoing pelvic pain through a specialist at Johns Hopkins. He validated our experience and tried to surgically repair what he could to give us any improvement. But, we had to wean our youngest before he would even consider the surgery. Vaginal repair requires estrogen for healing. When you are breastfeeding, you have NO estrogen. So, three months later our youngest was fully weaned and I went in for another vaginal mesh excision and pelvic cleanup.

This surgeon was compassionate and fully transparent. While the surgery did give me a little relief, it still wasn’t “normal” and we were advised that it never would be. Any further work at this point would be more likely to cause further damage or harm. He also told us that he would have never done the original surgery until we had weaned our baby.

I did try to locate the original surgeon during this time. It was truly as if he had fallen off the face of the medical world. I was just relieved that it seemed he wouldn’t be able to destroy anyone else. But, I had no idea how to live this new normal that we faced. The pain and pressure were still there. I had bladder spasms and pelvic pain whenever I overexerted myself and with any physical intimacy with my husband.

Over the years, we did the best we could to find ways to connect that didn’t cause so much pain. I also learned how to raise our family while dealing with chronic pain issues. It’s been a long road.

Here we are… 18 years from the original surgery. The trauma likely triggered my fibromyalgia. And the connective tissue disorder contributed to further pelvic prolapse issues and constant pain. I followed up with a new urogyn this last year and found that the answers medically are still the same – there is no healing and I will live this way (barring a miracle) the rest of my life. I grieved that loss over the last year and truly surrendered everything to the Lord. He is more than able to heal me if He ever wishes. But, He has confirmed several times that “His grace is sufficient” for me.

So, as I sit here on the 18th anniversary of the worst day of my life, I can truly say that God is always good and still has good things ahead for me. I am now working on better health habits to help me live life more fully while still living with the constant pain. Some days are still better than others… I am still on the journey toward full peace.