The Night Before

“They're going to think I'm faking it. I have this feeling that I'm going to wake up and my uterus is going to be perfectly fine. It'll be like, This is a huge mistake. Huge mistake. What are you doing? I'm perfectly fine. It was maybe just a really bad gas bubble for five, six, seven years.” — Emily, 1(!) Day Until Uterus Eviction Day

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In This Episode:

• It’s the night before the hysterectomy and I’m extra energetic, probably because of the stool softener.

• There’s so much I just don’t know with surgery. There’s no official book made specific to me called, “What to Expect When You’re Getting a Hysterectomy for Adenomyosis.”

• It’s funny to hear me talk about this as “time off” because it was major surgery that required plenty of rest for recovery. But it was also one of the first times in a long time I took off a significant amount of time from work for anything, really.

• Oh my goodness, the amount of gaslighting we do to ourselves with this condition! Yes, Emily, your uterus hurts a lot and often. It DOES require surgery! (Speaking as Future-Emily who’s so glad she/we did this, it’s not in your head!)

• No Tea Update: I had to hide the tea so I wouldn’t mindlessly start making it! I didn’t realize how much of a routine I got into of making tea every morning in the colder months. So for the last week, I’ve just been drinking hot water in a mug (I only like a few teas, and most of them are green tea-based).

• It’s funny to think that in 24 hours, I may be in pain, but it’ll be different pain and it definitely won’t be from my uterus.

• Eighty percent of me is paying attention to the present and the other 20 percent is worrying about worst-case scenarios — but in a Radical Acceptance kind of way, at least!

• Future-Emily here: I love listening to all the things I’m sad I couldn’t do for a few weeks, when just a few hours ago, I was bending over and twisting myself into a pretzel to paint my toe nails without thinking anything about surgery or recovery or pain and discomfort from my uterus. And all of a sudden, that little moment feels like a huge win for Future-Emily that I wish I could tell Past-Emily (the one recording this episode) that she’ll be doing sooner than she thinks!

Note from Future-Emily:

It’s SO funny I mentioned this being like the night before a vacation because, as I’m writing this, we’re currently in the last stages of vacation planning, and all these rushed, last-minute feelings are eerily familiar! I was JUST telling my husband last night that I haven’t been this chaotically productive since prepping for my Hysterectomy, and then I go to edit this episode and I practically say the exact same thing!

Additional Links and Resources:

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• Adenomyosis - Symptoms — Mayo Clinic

• Adenomyosis - Diagnosis + Treatment — Mayo Clinic

• Adenomyosis: A Significantly Neglected and Misunderstood Disorder - Book by Maria Yeager 

• Adenomyosis Advice Association Facebook Group — Facebook

• Link to Activity/Weeks After Surgery Chart from International Association for Premenstrual Disorders 

• Helpful Reddit r/hysterectomy Post To Read If You Have Pre-Op Anxiety — MamaO2D4

• HysterSisters — Hysterectomy Support & Stories

• Tara Brach’s Podcast and Radical Acceptance Book

• Adenomyosis at hysterectomy: prevalence, patient characteristics, clinical profile and histopatholgical finding — PubMed

• Adenomyosis: An update regarding its diagnosis and clinical features — PubMed

Disclaimer: This podcast is based on personal experience and should not be taken as medical advice. Resources are provided for you to look into further and talk with your medical support team about.

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