Aug. 7, 2025
126: Hysterectomy | 2 Weeks Post Op Update
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The unexpected sight of blood when you're eight years post-menopause can trigger immediate alarm bells. That's exactly what happened to me in September 2024, launching me on a journey that ultimately led to having a hysterectomy at age 55. This very personal episode takes you through my complete hysterectomy experience – from the shocking discovery of post-menopausal bleeding to my recovery two weeks after robotic laparoscopic surgery. I share the medical investigations that revealed my sign...
The unexpected sight of blood when you're eight years post-menopause can trigger immediate alarm bells. That's exactly what happened to me in September 2024, launching me on a journey that ultimately led to having a hysterectomy at age 55.
This very personal episode takes you through my complete hysterectomy experience – from the shocking discovery of post-menopausal bleeding to my recovery two weeks after robotic laparoscopic surgery. I share the medical investigations that revealed my significantly thickened uterine lining (likely caused by previous Tamoxifen treatment for Breast Cancer), the decision-making process that led to surgery, and exactly what happened during my hospital stay.
You'll hear all the details about my physical recovery and my gradual return to movement and normal activities. I discuss my frustrations with vague post-surgery exercise guidelines and how I advocated for more personalised recovery information as someone who regularly engages in heavy resistance training.
Throughout this episode, I emphasise that while I'm sharing my story to help others, everyone's hysterectomy journey is unique. Your body, your choices, and your recovery will follow their own path.
I've included practical tips about freezing meals before surgery, focusing on healing nutrition, and the importance of gentle movement in recovery.
This is the first in what will be a five-part series documenting my hysterectomy journey, with future episodes at weeks 4, 6, 9 and 12 post-surgery.
If you're facing a hysterectomy, supporting someone who is, or simply curious about what this experience entails, I hope my candid sharing provides insight, reassurance, and perhaps some practical guidance for your journey.
You can send me any questions or share your story with me on my Instagram @sonyalovell or email sonya@sonyalovell.com
Resources:
Tamoxifen and Uterine Lining ACOG paper
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology paper
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WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Dear Menopause podcast.
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I'm Sonya Lovell, your host Now.
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I've been bringing you conversations with amazing menopause experts for over two years now.
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If you have missed any of those conversations, now's the time to go back and listen, and you can always share them with anyone you think needs to hear them.
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This way, more people can find these amazing conversations, needs to hear them.
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This way, more people can find these amazing conversations.
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Hey there, and welcome to today's episode of Dear Menopause.
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Now, today's episode is a personal one.
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I'm going to be talking about my recent hysterectomy, the lead up, the surgery itself and my recovery so far.
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So today I am recording this two weeks post my operation.
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Now this is a raw and honest conversation about my own very personal experience the physical, the emotional and everything in between.
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But before we dive in, I want to be really clear.
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This is my story.
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Clear.
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This is my story.
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Every person's experience with a hysterectomy is different.
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Our bodies, our histories, our reasons for having the procedure they all shape how we navigate it.
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So while I hope that what I share here is helpful, validating or maybe even comforting, please remember it is not medical advice and it might not reflect your own path or outcome.
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So this episode is for anyone who's curious, perhaps preparing for their own surgery or supporting somebody who is, or maybe you just want to better understand what this experience can look like.
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I thought the best place to start was a brief overview introduction to myself.
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As much as I have been the host of Dear Menopause for well over three years now, I don't always share a lot of my own story on here.
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So I am 55 years of age, I'm eight years post-menopause and I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, when I was 47.
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And it was as a direct result of my cancer treatments that I experienced a medically induced menopause.
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So that was, as I said, at the age of 47, it was eight years ago.
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So I am very, very much post-menopausal.
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This episode today is part one of what will most likely be a five-part series.
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I'm planning to kind of do little updates along the lines of week two, which is what this episode is.
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This is all post-surgery.
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So week two, week four, week six, week nine and week 12.
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So today's episode is by far going to be the longest because I'm going to dive into the why, the how, the recovery, some questions that I had for my surgeon immediately after surgery, and then a little bit about what these last two weeks have looked like.
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So strap yourselves in.
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Today is going to be a longer episode, but the follow-up episodes will probably be, I would imagine, much shorter, because they are just going to be check-ins on what's changed since my last episode for me physically, mentally, emotionally.
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What have I been doing from a recovery perspective?
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How has my body changed in that period?
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So I hope that you enjoy them.
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The very first place, now that we've got the introduction out of the way, is to probably talk about why I ended up having a hysterectomy.
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Why I ended up having a hysterectomy, particularly for somebody that is, as I said, eight years post-menopause.
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So in September last year so that was September 2024, I experienced a very sudden onset of what is called post-menopausal bleeding.
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I quite literally went to the toilet to do a wee.
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I wiped afterwards and was extremely surprised to find that there was a significant amount of blood.
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That was really freaky, I'm not going to lie.
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That really took me by surprise.
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It was concerning and, yeah, I kind of panicked.
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Now.
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I'd had no pain, I'd had no indications that anything was kind of not quite right, that there would be any reason for the bleeding.
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I'm not going to lie.
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I literally even sat there and thought where has the blood come from?
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Is this vaginal blood?
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Is it from my bladder?
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Is it from my bowel?
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Like it was really that kind of like you know thought process that I went through when, when it all kind of happened.
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You know thought process that I went through when it all kind of happened.
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There was something about it, though that didn't very much make me confident that it was vaginal bleeding that I was experiencing.
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That resulted in some very quick calls to my GP, who very quickly got me in to see a gynecologist, who very quickly got me in to have a pelvic ultrasound and which fast tracked to having a hysteroscopy, which is a day surgery procedure, and all of that happened within about five days.
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So obviously, given my health history, my history with cancer and the fact that I was eight years postmenopausal, there was a really strong, you know, drive to find out why this was happening and obviously the results of the pelvic ultrasound as well indicated that my uterine lining was very, very thick.
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I think, from memory, anything over, you know, the number four is, which I think is four millimeters, is anything under four is like, considered okay, but I think from memory mine was like around 14 or something like that Like it was a significant overgrowth of my uterine lining, so hence why I was kind of put into a hysteroscopy really quickly.
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So as a part of the hysteroscopy, my beautiful gynecologist, dr Talat Appel, described it as going in and doing some gardening, basically.
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So she said that she mowed the lawns, which was trimmed my uterine lining right back.
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She did a bit of weeding so she took out I think there may have been a small polyp, a small fibroid, nothing that was concerning, but she removed those while she was in there and obviously there was pathology that was sent off as well.
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So that happened in September last year.
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Now they continued to bleed even after that procedure.
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My pathology at that point came back all clear, which was great.
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But there were some very minor cell changes that were not necessarily concerning, but they kind of were like just, you know, like a little bit of an orange flag, if you like.
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So we decided that the best course of action was basically just to do some really close monitoring and just kind of, you know, see whether the bleeding that was continuing was just as a result of the hysteroscopy, and we just let that play out and see what happened.
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So I also played around, with the support of my GP, with my progesterone that I was taking.
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So we upped the dose of my progesterone.
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We tried with vaginal insertion of my progesterone rather than taking it orally.
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We played around with that for a couple of months but nothing really made any difference and I was kind of probably like it was almost became like having a period again.
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I'd kind of have two or three weeks where there'd be no bleeding and I'd get really excited and I'd think, okay, this is it, it's done now.
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And then out of the blue I'd start bleeding again.
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I'd bleed for a few days and then I'd stop again.
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Now the bleeding was never really heavy, initially immediately after my hysteroscopy and particularly after my gynecologist inserted a Mirena during the hysteroscopy, purely from a precautionary perspective, whereas while we were waiting for the pathology to come back on the uterine lining to just make sure that if there were any you know sinister cells lurking around in there, that the marina would create some protection from that.
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So when my pathology came back clear, we removed the marina and I did have some quite heavy bleeding, initially after the removal of the marina, but ongoing.
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So when I fell into this kind of cycle of almost having periods again, the bleeding was actually quite light in the scheme of things, I really was wearing period undies and that was about all that I needed.
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Some days it was really nothing more than I'd just go to the bathroom and I'd wipe and there would be blood.
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But I wasn't like heavy bleeding.
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So I was very lucky in the respect that it wasn't heavy menstrual bleeding.
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It wasn't painful, I didn't experience any pain.
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But, being eight years post-menopause, there was obviously a concern that I did continue to bleed.
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So, as I said, we decided to kind of move forward at that point, just with some monitoring.
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So I was going in and having three monthly checks with Talat.
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She was doing ultrasounds.
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We were, you know, keeping an eye on the endometrial lining, or sorry, the uterine lining, and that was starting to re-thicken a little bit as well.
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So that was noted.
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I went and saw her in.
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I had two checkups post-hysteroscopy.
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It was the checkup in May of this year so May 2025, that we decided that the lining was kind of starting to thicken up again and it was, given my health history, given the anxiety that it was causing me to have this unexplained ongoing bleeding, that the best course of action was probably going to be looking at some surgery.
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Given my age, given my desire to not have any children even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't anyway my kids are in their 20s For me, the choice to remove my reproductive organs was not a difficult choice.
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For someone that has survived cancer and gone through a lot of grieving and emotional labor as a result of that, this really for me didn't feel like a significantly huge emotional decision to remove my reproductive organs.
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I definitely knew that I didn't want to live with a constant fear and anxiety of what might be going on down there.
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I already have to have a number of annual checks as a result of my breast cancer.
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I just really didn't feel the need to add anything else into that mix.
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So it was a very easy conversation between us that a hysterectomy was probably going to be the best outcome to give me the quality of life that I fought really hard to have and, you know, really remove all risk of anything sinister you know sinister happening down the track Now in terms of any kind of questioning around what had caused the thickening of the lining, continued growth of that the most common cause that I've spoken with my GP, I've spoken with my gynecologist, I've spoken with my surgeon.
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I've also had conversations with other friends that are all clinicians as well.
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The thing that everybody keeps coming back to most commonly for me is that it was probably caused by the tamoxifen that I took as a part of my breast cancer treatment.
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So my adjuvant therapy began about nine months after I finished my treatment, so by then it was kind of the end of 2017.
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I went on to tamoxifen.
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We also played with letrozole, which I really didn't tolerate and didn't like, and I went back onto tamoxifen and I was on that for about three years before I did make a personal decision to stop taking that.
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That's a whole other topic and conversation, so I'm not going to dive into that right now.
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All we're going to talk about is the fact that I had taken tamoxifen for three years and this was now probably about four years since I'd taken the tamoxifen that I was having these problems.
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So there is a lot of research.
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I'll link, actually, to a couple of papers in the show notes of this episode.
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There is evidence to show that tamoxifen does in fact cause an overgrowth of the uterine lining and it is not a side effect.
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That was explained to me when I was put on it.
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Can't tell you why that was the case, but it was, and so therefore it wasn't something that I was aware could be an ongoing issue.
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I like to think that if I had been told, then perhaps we could have done some baseline testing at different points in time to ensure that that wasn't something that was actually kind of getting out of control and happening.
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So that's really where I sit in terms of the.
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Did this bleeding occur?
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Why was the lining thickening and growing when it really shouldn't have been given?
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I was eight years postmenopausal, so, yeah, let's kind of like just cover that off there and leave that and move into the hysterectomy.
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So, as I said, it was in the May of this year so now that is about three months ago that we decided a hysterectomy was going to be my best course of action.
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I took a little while to decide which type of hysterectomy I was going to have, and when I say that, I don't mean that I was involved in the choice of what was being removed and what wasn't, but I was definitely able to make a choice over the type of surgery that I had, in the sense that there is laparoscopic hysterectomies and there is robotic laparoscopic hysterectomies.
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Now I did a lot of research into both options and decided that for me, from a personal comfort level, from a returning to my desired quality of life as quickly as possible, and also being fortunate enough to be able to make this decision because it was the more expensive option, and I also happen to be fortunate enough to live in the middle of Sydney, so I have very easy access to these facilities that I would have the robotic laparoscopic hysterectomy.
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So that, as I said, for me was all about the fact that it is a less invasive surgery.
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It is said to reduce the amount of pain that is experienced post-surgery, less blood loss and also a faster recovery.
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So they were the big things that ticked boxes for me.
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So, as I said, you know, going back to my breast cancer experience, you know I spent three years recovering from the treatment that I had for breast cancer.
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You know I had surgery, I had chemotherapy, I had radiotherapy and then I had adjuvant therapy and you know it really did take me three good years to recover physically, emotionally, from the toll that that took on me and I was very clear that if I was going to have major surgery which, let's be honest, a hysterectomy absolutely is I wanted to be able to go with this type of surgery that would reduce all of that recovery time.
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For me, living a life with a very high quality of life is very, very important to me.
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I've made a number of decisions over the years, all based on ensuring that I am experiencing the highest quality of life, so that is why I chose to move forward with having the robotic laparoscopic surgery, and it meant, when I did have my surgery, I actually had three surgeons in the room with me.
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So I had my robotic surgeon, who was Dr Tanu Rao, who is just absolutely divine.
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I had her assistant was in there with us as well, as well, as my beautiful gynecologist, dr Tala Ahol, was also in there with me as well.
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So, you know, I was very well looked after and I felt very safe, knowing that these incredible women all have my back, all have my best interests in mind and that, you know, my risk of anything going wrong was really kind of as controlled as possible.
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So when we discussed what once I made that decision that I was going to have a robotic laparoscopic surgery, I was then able to start diving into my own research around what having a hysterectomy actually meant.
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It's not something that I had spent a lot of time thinking about.
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I'd never had to in the past, so I really went into a bit of a deep dive into, okay.
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So what does this actually mean?
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And it meant that when I went to meet with before my surgery, I had a long list of questions for her, because the more that I researched and found out, the more questions that came up for me that I wanted answered prior to my surgery.
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So what was removed from a organ perspective, if you want was my cervix, my uterus.
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I had a bilateral cell panectomy, which means that both of my fallopian tubes were removed, and there was a question mark over what we would do with my ovaries.
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So on ultrasound and in the hysteroscopy, my ovaries had looked healthy, and so one of the questions that Dr Rao had for me and we spoke about a lot in our meeting prior to surgery was what we were going to do with my ovaries Now.
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As I said, I'm 55.
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So my ovaries, as much as I'm postmenopausal, are still producing some natural hormones for me estrogen, progesterone and it was in my best interest to be able to keep my ovaries if they were healthy, if there was nothing going on that caused any concern for the surgeons that were in my surgery, and so we kind of went into surgery with a plus minus attitude.
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It was like I signed a waiver before I went into surgery to say that if when they got in there they had a look at my ovaries and they really were either unhealthy or they were compromised or there was any reason for them not to be kept, that they would have my permission to remove those as well.
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The other procedure that I had done while I was in there was a high uterosacral ligament suspension.
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Now this came about as a result of a conversation that I had with Dr Rath.
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I am somebody that has extensive experience and history and a huge passion for very heavy lifting at the gym.
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So I do a lot of resistance training, I do a lot of very heavy lifting, olympic lifting, that type of thing.
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So you know we're talking 80 kilo plus sometimes more than a hundred kilos on the bar, and it was very, very important to me that my pelvic floor would be, would not be compromised as a result of this surgery.
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Okay, and one of my biggest questions was around a potential vaginal prolapse at some point in time.
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So that was why Dr Rao suggested that we do an additional procedure while I was in there, which was the high utero sacral ligament suspension.
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And what that means in very Sonia layman terms is that when she attached my vagina post-removal of the cervix and the uterus to the ligament that was going to support it post-surgery, that it was actually kind of pulled up and tightened to a higher ligament within that kind of anatomical structure to ensure that it was going to be really stable, really strong and definitely remove as much risk as possible of there being a vaginal prolapse down the trap.
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And you know, just kind of talking a little bit about why that was so important for me is, if you're not familiar with Olympic lifting big, heavy bar movements where you're loading the spine significantly, one of the most important things that you need to be able to do to brace and protect your spine, protect your core, protect your body from injury is create intra-abdominal pressure through holding of your breath during those movements, and it's a very controlled breathing technique but it does create an incredible amount of intra-abdominal pressure and that was where my concerns came for keeping my pelvic floor as healthy and safe and structurally sound as possible, as well as this concern over my vaginal prolapse, given the structures that hold my vagina in place were actually being removed as a part of the surgery.
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So, yeah, that's just a little kind of segue into why we chose to throw in this additional kind of little procedure as well while she was in there.
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So that was all the actual physical procedures that were going to take place during my surgery and I was really happy with all of that.
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One of the things that blew me away in my first meeting with Dr Rao prior to surgery, as I said, I went in with a great big list of questions.
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I wanted to know, if they removed my cervix and my uterus and my fallopian tubes, then what were my ovaries going to be attached to?
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What was my vagina going to be attached to?
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You know, if you take away a piece of something, then how is that then structurally sound?
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And you know I wanted answers to all those things.
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I also wanted to understand what would happen to the space that was created in my pelvic region once those organs were removed, and the answer to that, if anybody's interested, is that your bowel and your bladder and your intestines all kind of, over time, they reconfigure themselves and they move in to take over some of that space that has been created by the removal of your uterus and your fallopian tubes.
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So, yeah, I had those sorts of questions that I wanted answered and she was so patient and so generous and she actually made the comment while we were talking that, you know, this was the appointment was my appointment.
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The appointment was designed to ensure that every question that I had prior to surgery I had the opportunity to ask and that she would answer.
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You know, and that was really that was really encouraging to me.
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It made me feel really safe.
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It made me feel very cared for we don't always walk out of specialist appointments, or even, sometimes, our GP appointments, feeling like our doctors have actually held space for us to ask all the questions that we wanted.
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Regardless of how silly you might think your question is or how unimportant you might think your question might be to them, it's still important to you.
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So she really went a long way for making me feel like she was holding space for me to be as comfortable as possible with the surgery that we were going to move forward with.
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So then let's talk about the actual surgery.
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So I was in surgery for about two and a half hours.
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I had surgery on the 23rd of July, so that is actually two weeks ago today that I'm recording this.
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This podcast episode is going to be published on Friday of this week.
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I'm recording this today.
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It's Wednesday and today is my two-week post-op kind of anniversary, if you like.
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So, two and a half hours in surgery.
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They were able to keep my ovaries, which I was really really happy about.
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And one of the things I didn't mention earlier was one of the reasons why, you know, we were hoping to be able to keep my ovaries was because they're still I think I mentioned that they're still producing, you know, a baseline of hormones.
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For me, what that means is that I'm still getting that very you know the heart protection, the bone protection of my own hormones being produced, and you know we want to be able to take advantage of that for as long as we can, and so I was absolutely stoked.
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It was actually one of the first things that they told me when I was coming out from under the anesthetic was we kept your ovaries.
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I was really happy to know that.
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So, yeah, everything else that I talked about went completely to plan.
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I had absolutely no complications, no concerns.
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It really, from then on, was just a matter of me recovering and healing.
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So that was fantastic.
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One of the things that I had, which I have not experienced before, was explained to me beforehand that I would have this, and that was that I woke up with a catheter.
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It was fun.
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For anyone that's not had a catheter before, yeah, that was not something that I've experienced before, and where that became not uncomfortable it was never uncomfortable, but it became limiting with mobility.
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For me was in the first few hours post-operative, so by the time that I kind of got, I was in recovery for a while.
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Then I got taken back to my room.
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I was very much kind of trapped in one position I guess, and that was literally lying flat on my back.
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So I had a catheter which was on my right side and I had a multiple.
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I had three cannulas in my left arm and so and I don't my body does not tolerate cannulas very well.
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It's also happens to be the same that I had all of my chemotherapy treatment in.
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The veins really are a bit kind of cranky in that arm now.
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So I really don't find cannulas comfortable.
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So I was kind of trapped in this.
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You know, lying on my back position, I had the three cannulas on my left and then I had the catheter coming down my right side and I really felt like I had no wiggle room whatsoever.
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So that was something that I kind of really struggled with for the first few hours post-surgery.
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I also had a slight reaction to the anesthetic, which made me pretty cranky.
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My poor husband.
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I sent him home because I was like I am not in a good space, I'm not doing well at this point in time and we're only talking a matter of hours after my surgery, and I decided that the best thing for him to do was probably just to go home.
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And it's really hard being that person sitting in a hospital room watching the person that you love the most in the world not do well and knowing they've also just gone through this really significant surgery.
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So, yeah, I sent him home and he came back the next day and got me, which was very lovely.
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So I did end up only spending 24 hours in the hospital.
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Basically, I was discharged the next day.
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I think I left the hospital kind of around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, so it was a little bit longer than 24 hours, but I was only in the hospital over one night, which is really it really surprised me actually, because I kind of really struggled those first, probably about 12 to 18 hours post-surgery, in the bed that I was in.
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I was really uncomfortable, I couldn't eat because I was having a little bit of reaction to the anesthetic and you know, I couldn't move.
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I didn't find that very comfortable.
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And Dr Rao came and saw me the first morning to check in on how I was doing and I was kind of like, oh look, I'm okay, but I'm really not doing.
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They checked my wounds and they checked all my vitals and everything and I hadn't used any pain meds gosh for probably about four or five hours at that point.
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And she was like, okay, well, you can go home today, you'll be fine.
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And I was kind of like in my head I went, yeah, right, I'm going home today, so not happening.
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But I was like, okay, cool, thanks, and cause I had actually preemptively booked to be in for the two nights and so I knew that I had up my sleeve.
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I could stay if I needed to and, of course, if there's a drama, you're going to stay in hospital anyway.
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But not long after that I was able to have some breakfast and I kept that down.
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That made a huge difference.
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They took the catheter out.
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That made a huge difference to my mobility and how I felt.
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And then the nurse got me up and I had a shower and all the important things when you're coming out of surgery.
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I passed wind, I did a wee, I fully emptied my bladder and I had a shower and I was actually quite surprised that a couple of hours after doing all of those things I felt really good in the scheme of things, of course, but I felt really good.
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I found myself kind of pacing around the room.
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I was doing calf raises, I was doing tiny little pushups against the wall.
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One of the things that they talk to you about is the potential for some pain post-operatively as a result of the gases that are used to extend your abdomen so that they can get in through the incisions that they make.
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And it's like when you have a knee surgery or anything like that laparoscopic surgery everything's blown up and the gases that they use for that can get trapped in your body and they kind of can move around throughout the body and then they can get trapped in certain parts of the body.
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One of the areas I believe that a lot of people experience some pain can be shoulders, and they do say that the more that you can move, the less likely that that is, because you start shifting all of that around and removing it from your body.
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So once I realized that I could get up and get moving, I was really keen to kind of keep my body moving as often as I could.
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I was really lucky.
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I actually never experienced any of that pain that they tell you is a potential, so I'm really really grateful that I didn't experience that.
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I did keep myself moving once I got home, just walking around our apartment I was literally pacing from one end to the other as often as I could, because I was really conscious of keeping my body moving and keeping energy moving through it, as well as all those internal gases and fluids and everything.
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So yeah.
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So once I realized that I actually felt okay, I was moving around in the hospital, the thought of spending another night in the hospital I really wasn't looking forward to, because they come and check you every three hours.
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Every three hours I was having my temperature taken, my blood pressure taken and my oxygen levels checked and you know they come in, they turn the lights on, they have a chat to you, you know.
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So it's a very disruptive time being in hospital.
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So when I realized that you know, dr Rao had given me permission that morning to go home, I felt okay.
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I was like you know what I actually really like to just go home and sleep in my bed.
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So that was what we chose to do.
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My hubby came and got me and I was back home.
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So only one night in the hospital, which turned out to be really good, I did have a fantastic sleep that night in our own bed.
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I think I slept 10 hours.
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It was much better than I would have got if I'd stayed in the hospital.
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So, in terms of what my healing and recovery has looked like for the past two weeks so it's been two weeks since I had the operation the first week was really a significant change physically.
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So that first afternoon when I came home, I realized how much swelling I had through my abdomen, my tummy was.
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I literally said to my husband I look like I'm six months pregnant, like I was just really bloated and swollen and obviously there's a significant amount of inflammation going on in that area as well.
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I have four incisions that were made for the surgery.
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They are very small.
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I actually measured them this morning so that I could give you this information.
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They're about one to one and a half centimeters long each and I only have three that are visible.
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One of them is actually right through the center of my belly button and I'm sorry if that makes anyone squeamish.
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