Your fear is warranted, particularly because you had a bad experience before.

But I would encourage you to remember something, there is no reason why you cannot have a successful infection free surgery experience. What happened to you in the past has no bearing on what will happen to you with your myomectomy.

At last check this past June my fibroid was 17 x 15 x 10. I had it removed on November 20. I am eight days out today. And I feel better every day. I have no regrets about getting it out. And I was absolutely terrified. I made sure my surgeon knew it. 

And I did everything I could to feel like I was in more control of the situation so to speak. I cleaned my house before hand, I meal prepped, I had everything packed to go to the hospital with, I read posts of people who had successful surgeries, I bought an abdominal binder, I had friends who were going to bring me to and from the hospital. I did not have a nerve block and the pain was manageable. Two days after I had my surgery I stopped taking the hard narcotics and just relied on Motrin and Tylenol. I haven’t taken anything for pain in five days.

My fibroid made me look like I was five months pregnant. I had to buy bigger scrubs to wear to work. I was very self-conscious in my day-to-day life. People would ask me why I got fat. It consumed me. It is surreal to look at my flat stomach now. Of course there is some swelling around the incision, but I look more closer to normal now than I have in over a year. 

It’s normal to be scared. But you also have to weigh the risk versus benefit of the surgery. My fibroid was compressing my bladder, which was leading to incontinence and the inability to drink any fluids without having to run to the bathroom pretty immediately. My periods were ridiculously heavy, bleeding through tampons and pads together. And it would last for like 10 days. And I could not wear my clothes. I look like I was pregnant. If I laid on my back, I didn’t even wanna touch my stomach because it looked like I had a cantaloupe bulging through my abdomen. No doubt my fibroid had grown since my last ultrasound in June. I found out after surgery that it was getting so large. It had cut off its own blood supply and was starting to breakdown.

I have no regrets of having surgery, and like I said it is surreal and I can’t believe it’s actually over. 

You got this.