Scarred… for life?
We met with Vicki, our birth provider, for our final appointment on Monday. During the visit, we discussed ‘what happened’ in great detail. The most interesting part of our discussion was revisiting what Dr. Maher found when he opened me up… the extensive scarring (“intra-abdominal adhesions”) throughout my abdomen and mis-placement of organs. According to Vicki, Dr. Maher spoke candidly at length to her about it the day after the delivery, using colorful and pointed language about the horrendous job the surgeons had done.
(Note, this is the part where things get personal.) Immediately after the surgery, I noticed a drastic change in my ability to pee — since Will’s birth, I’d had a very difficult time going to the bathroom… it took time, I rarely felt “empty”, and had to visit the WC much more than before. I chalked up the changes to normal stuff that happens after having a baby. Another change I had post-Will was pain during intercourse. I figured it would take time to “get better” and again, chalked it up to pregnancy and body changes. Now, at 8-weeks post-partum, I can say that that symptom has also gone away. Which makes me believe that both were related to the poor job the surgeons did during my first Cesarean.
If Kate had been born vaginally, I never would have known how the scarring was affecting my quality of life. I would have gone on without complaint. It makes me wonder what else I could be missing.
Another issue that Dr. Maher explained during our 2-week follow-up was that the scarring is so extensive that it actually includes my bowel — now attached in layers of scar tissue to my uterus. This is a bit alarming to me because of my history of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Normally the bowel is able to move and twist in the abdomen… now, mine cannot. Should I have a flare of IBD, how will this impact it? During this visit, he also mentioned that I may need future laproscopic surgery to repair some of the damage. He addressed the areas that needed to be disturbed for the purpose of delivering Kate, but decided not to go further because of the great impact it would have had on my recovery. With a new baby to handle and feed, getting me healed quick seemed the better option (for this, I’m thankful.) But does this means I face further surgery in the future?
Now that we’ve had time to process — and I’ve had time to enjoy the relative ease of using the bathroom and being intimate with my spouse — I’m shocked to think that I would have lived with these impairments for years. And I feel compelled to do something about it; I’m just not sure what.
I’m puzzled as to how an attending allowed my surgery to happen the way that it did. I understand that there is no clear way of performing surgery… it’s not like you can do a random assignment of different surgical styles and then re-open patients years later to see which healed better. So does that mean that what was done on me (basically, very very over-zealous and unnecessary stitching) is what is taught at this facility? If so, then I really need to follow-up; perhaps my experience could provide insight into better practices.
What would you do?
