Hysterectomy: Between Vague Information and Medical Silence

Before my hysterectomy, I did not feel I really had time to prepare myself. I received a call on March 19 for an operation scheduled on April 11. In between, there was not really any room to think it through or to back out easily. Either I accepted, or I went back on the waiting list, after already being on it for two years. So the decision was made under a sense of urgency, but also with a certain exhaustion from having waited for so long.

In this already quite heavy context, the appointment with the surgeon should have been an important moment to ask all my questions. Yet it started in a rather chaotic way. The receptionist had clearly confirmed an in-person appointment, but once I arrived, the surgeon could not find me. After a long time waiting, he finally called me to say that he thought it was a phone appointment. And yet I had already been in the waiting room for an hour.

Fortunately, the situation was sorted out: they managed to arrange an appointment with another one of my surgeons so that the consultation would not be completely lost. All of this was happening during a holiday period as well, which made everything even more complicated to coordinate. I was also with Jaja that day, who accompanied me. Despite the waiting and the slightly stressful context, he was very calm, very patient, almost “cute.” In the end, I was still able to ask a few questions, but in rather fragmented conditions.

After that, the hospital appointments were mostly very administrative and technical: blood tests, weight, height, questions about allergies, and so on. In my case, since I have many allergies, I was given a red bracelet on the day of the operation. But at that stage, we were mainly talking about basic medical data, without really addressing what the operation would concretely mean in daily life afterwards.

That gap is precisely what makes what comes next even harder to anticipate. The moment of decision, for example, was added to all of this. It came right in the middle of an important personal period, Jaja’s birthday, and I had to decide quickly so as not to lose my place and fall back into waiting again. It was not a decision made in a neutral or ideal space, but in a real life that was already very full.

I only met one surgeon, but later I discovered, notably through a Facebook group of women who had gone through the same operation, that there can sometimes be important differences in medical discourse and recommendations. That was when I realized that depending on the team, the information could vary, which adds even more uncertainty to an already very charged moment.

And unfortunately, that uncertainty continues after the operation as well. What surprised me most was not only the physical recovery, but everything that comes with it. The two weeks of anticoagulant injections, for example, to do yourself or have someone do for you, without any real organized follow-up for that. When I called the hospital because I could not manage it, I was referred back to my general practitioner. Except my general practitioner would not do it either. So I found myself a bit alone with it, having to adapt as best I could.

On top of that, there are not really any structured follow-up appointments afterwards. You go home, and that is it. That is when I really felt a kind of emptiness, even abandonment, as if you were simply expected to manage the rest without support.

Even basic information is not always clear or consistent. For example, with baths, the timing changes depending on the instructions: four weeks, ten weeks, twelve weeks... You end up no longer really knowing what is actually recommended, and in the end it is often in support groups or on Facebook that I found the most clarity.

Looking back, what struck me most was that people talk a lot about physical recovery, but very little about the mental impact. I had been told quite clearly that the body needed time to recover, but not really what it could do to my mind. And yet that is an important dimension, perhaps even the most unsettling one.

Even today, I have sometimes had more answers and support in women’s groups on Facebook than in the medical pathway itself. Because there, experiences are shared, concrete, lived, and above all not minimized or simplified.

And perhaps that is where the most important lack lies: more complete, more human information that does not stop at the medical procedure, but also takes into account everything that comes after.