My difficult open myomectomy recovery: blood loss, pulmonary embolism & 3 weeks in hospital
One month ago I had a laparotomy and multiple myomectomy to remove large fibroids. I wanted to share my experience because before surgery I spent a lot of time reading Reddit posts, and maybe this can help someone else.
I’m 35 years old and we hope to have a baby in the future, so keeping my uterus was very important to me. I had fibroids measuring two 11 cm, 10 cm, 6.5 cm and 5.5 cm, plus many smaller ones. Most of the large fibroids were outside the uterus, but one was inside. My surgeon always said the surgery was risky because of possible heavy bleeding.
During surgery I lost around 1.2 litres of blood. I also had bleeding on the first day after surgery, so they gave me medicine to stop the bleeding. Because of the blood loss I became very weak and couldn’t really walk for 4 days.
After that I developed blood clots in my lungs (pulmonary embolism) and also an infection in my body. For the first week doctors couldn’t find where the infection was coming from. I ended up staying in hospital for 3 weeks. Now I’m still having treatment at home for the blood clots and will continue it for a couple more months.
The surgeons managed to remove the large fibroids outside the uterus, but because of the bleeding they had to stop the surgery before removing the fibroid inside the uterus.
I also have a vertical incision, which has made recovery harder physically and emotionally.
Honestly this has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. Before surgery I mostly read positive recovery stories, so I wanted to share that complications can happen too. Even after everything, I still feel trying to save my uterus was the right decision for me.
If anyone has gone through something similar, especially blood clots after surgery or difficult myomectomy recovery, I would really appreciate hearing your experience.