Hysterectomy Quotes

A week in the hospital she had told us. A hysterectomy, she had said. It had seemed unremarkable to me in a woman of forty-six long finished with childbearing, although every day that I grow older I realize there is never anything unremarkable about losing any part of what makes you female - a breast, a womb, a child, a man.

On the floors above Delivery, in flowerless rooms, women lay recovering from hysterectomies and mastectomies. Teenage girls with burst ovarian cysts nodded out on morphine. It was all around me from the beginning, the weight of female suffering, with its biblical justification and vanishing acts.

Fuck the miracle of life, where do I sign up for a hysterectomy?

It wasn't my first mutilation, but it was one of my best.

she even contemplated having her womb taken out to eliminate periods altogether, which would surely be her greatest possible career move, a tactical hysterectomy for ambitious women with menstruation problems

She overheard one of them shout, “This is Dr. Hartt’s daughter!” Eve had no idea why those words came back to her at night. Over and over her brain repeated, “This is Dr. Hartt’s daughter!” Not “Eve, we aren’t showing a heartbeat on the baby.” Not “David Statford was pronounced dead at the scene.” Not “We can’t stop the bleeding. She’s hemorrhaging.” Not “If the infection continues, we’re not going to have any choice. Eve, we’re recommending a hysterectomy.” Maybe it was because she’d still had hope when she heard those words. Maybe because she’d thought she’d be protected since her father was a surgeon at the hospital where the ambulance took her.

In September 2020, Dawn Wooten, a nurse at Irwin County Detention Center, a private Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Georgia, alleged in a whistleblower complaint that an obstetrician-gynaecologist was performing ‘unwarranted’ and often non-consensual mass hysterectomies on detained women. According to Wooten, ‘everybody he sees has a hysterectomy – just about everybody

In retrospect, it is evident that highlighting abortion rather than reproductive rights as a whole reflected the class biases of the women who were at the forefront of the movement. While the issue of abortion was and remains relevant to all women, there were other reproductive issues that were just as vital which needed attention and might have served to galvanize masses. These issues ranged from basic sex education, prenatal care, preventive health care that would help females understand how their bodies worked, to forced sterilization, unnecessary cesareans and/or hysterectomies, and the medical complications left in their wake. Of all these issues individual white women with class privilege identified most intimately with the pain of unwanted pregnancy. And they highlighted the abortion issue. They were not by any means the only group in need of access to safe, legal abortions. As already stated, they were far more likely to have the means the to acquire an abortion than poor and working-class women. In those days poor women, black women included, often sought illegal abortions. The right to have an abortion was not a white-women-only issue; it was simply not the only or even most important reproductive concern for masses of American women.

The country is proud of its dead poets. It takes terrific satisfaction in the poets’ testimony that the USA is too tough, too big, too much, too rugged, that American reality is overpowering. And to be a poet is a school thing, a skirt thing, a church thing. The weakness of the spiritual powers is proved in the childishness, madness, drunkenness, and despair of these martyrs. Orpheus moved stones and trees. But a poet can’t perform a hysterectomy or send a vehicle out of the solar system. Miracle and power no longer belong to him. So poets are loved, but loved because they just can’t make it here. They exist to light up the enormity of the awful tangle and justify the cynicism of those who say, ‘If I were not such a corrupt, unfeeling bastard, creep, thief, and vulture, I couldn’t get through this either. Look at these good and tender and soft men, the best of us. They succumbed, poor loonies.

For a long time being female was treated by science and medicine as being akin to having a serious psychological disorder. Women were routinely prescribed hysterectomies or anxiolytics like valium to treat the symptoms of hysteria which is a syndrome with symptoms that are suspiciously similar to the symptoms of being of human female who has to deal with stupid sexist bullshit. Although scions and medicine has come a long way since these sorts of practices were common place every woman i know has had an experience of being treated as less rational version of a man. Sometimes even by our own doctors simply by virtue of our gender. There belief that women are irrational and therefore underserving of the same rights as men is something that has lingered in the public consciousness in a huge way. And women are very aware of this. We have to listen to a lot of people say a lot of dumb shit about our hormones and about whether we deserve the right to control our own fertility. These types of claims particularly when combined with sciences and medicine mishandling of women for so long have made it very difficult for anyone, even female scientists, to have thoughtful conversations about things like women's hormones and fertility regulation. These topics unaddressed by science are often met with suspicion by anyone who has ever owned a pair of ovaries or is an ovarian sympatist.

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a collection of symptoms that can include among other things: mood swings, anxiety, breast tenderness, bloating, acne, headaches, stomach pain and sleep problems. PMS affects 90% of women, but is chronically under-studied: one research round-up found five times as many studies on erectile dysfunction than on PMS.88 And yet while a range of medication exists to treat erectile dysfunction89 there is very little available for women, to the extent that over 40% of women who have PMS don’t respond to treatments currently available. Sufferers are still sometimes treated with hysterectomies; in extreme cases, women have tried to kill themselves.90 But researchers are still being turned down for research grants on the basis that ‘PMS does not actually exist’.91

It is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language — the most loopy and wiggy of all tongues. In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people play at a recital and recite at a play? Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall? Why is it that when we transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it’s called cargo? Why does a man get a hernia and a woman a hysterectomy? Why do we pack suits in a garment bag and garments in a suitcase? Why do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in the private mess? Why do we call it newsprint when it contains no printing but when we put print on it, we call it a newspaper? Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists? Why — in our crazy language — can your nose run and your feet smell?Language is like the air we breathe. It’s invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But, when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night, tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours — especially happy hours and rush hours — often last longer than sixty minutes, quicksand works very slowly, boxing rings are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them. In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree —no bath, no room; it’s still going to the bathroom. And doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom? Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women? Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane: In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand? Why do they call them apartments when they’re all together? Why do we call them buildings, when they’re already built? Why it is called a TV set when you get only one? Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically? Why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic? Why doesn’t onomatopoeia sound like what it is? Why is the word abbreviation so long? Why is diminutive so undiminutive? Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables? Why is there no synonym for synonym or thesaurus? And why, pray tell, does lisp have an s in it? If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume? If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress? ...

One year later the society claimed victory in another case which again did not fit within the parameters of the syndrome, nor did the court find on the issue. Fiona Reay, a 33 year old care assistant, accused her father of systematic sexual abuse during her childhood. The facts of her childhood were not in dispute: she had run away from home on a number of occasions and there was evidence that she had never been enrolled in secondary school. Her father said it was because she was ‘young and stupid’. He had physically assaulted Fiona on a number of occasions, one of which occurred when she was sixteen. The police had been called to the house by her boyfriend; after he had dropped her home, he heard her screaming as her father beat her with a dog chain. As before there was no evidence of repression of memory in this case. Fiona Reay had been telling the same story to different health professionals for years. Her medical records document her consistent reference to family problems from the age of 14. She finally made a clear statement in 1982 when she asked a gynaecologist if her need for a hysterectomy could be related to the fact that she had been sexually abused by her father. Five years later she was admitted to psychiatric hospital stating that one of the precipitant factors causing her breakdown had been an unexpected visit from her father. She found him stroking her daughter. There had been no therapy, no regression and no hypnosis prior to the allegations being made public. The jury took 27 minutes to find Fiona Reay’s father not guilty of rape and indecent assault. As before, the court did not hear evidence from expert witnesses stating that Fiona was suffering from false memory syndrome. The only suggestion of this was by the defence counsel, Toby Hed­worth. In his closing remarks he referred to the ‘worrying phenomenon of people coming to believe in phantom memories’. The next case which was claimed as a triumph for false memory was heard in March 1995. A father was aquitted of raping his daughter. The claims of the BFMS followed the familiar pattern of not fitting within the parameters of false memory at all. The daughter made the allegations to staff members whom she had befriended during her stay in psychiatric hospital. As before there was no evidence of memory repression or recovery during therapy and again the case failed due to lack of corrobo­rating evidence. Yet the society picked up on the defence solicitor’s statements that the daughter was a prone to ‘fantasise’ about sexual matters and had been sexually promiscuous with other patients in the hospital. ~ Trouble and Strife, Issues 37-43

Those baby-ghosts love to whisper; they love to hypnotize me every time I smell a newborn’s head or even look at Facebook posts of toddlers splashing in bathtubs and playing in pumpkin patches. But the truth is, those whispers are small echoes of a life that wasn’t supposed to be—a life I unknowingly abandoned when I stepped foot in that classroom and used my time to care for other people’s children. Those whispers taunt from some innate, ancestral, maybe even mystical place of wonder that, surely, I’ll never understand. What I do understand is the transformative value—how to use those voices to repair others and bring meaning to my life. For every student rocking in that blue chair, I have purpose.

In the US today the two most common surgeries are both female only, and on the womb: C-sections and hysterectomies. xxxiii

uterine fibroids (benign tumors of the uterus) have been treated, thus avoiding hysterectomies and infertility. Clinical trials for tumors of the brain, breast, pancreas and liver, as well as Parkinson’s disease, arthritis,

This is not science fiction. Around the world, 50,000 men with prostate cancer have been treated with focused ultrasound. Over 36,000 women with uterine fibroids (benign tumors of the uterus) have been treated, thus avoiding hysterectomies and infertility. Clinical trials for tumors of the brain, breast, pancreas, and liver, as well as Parkinson’s disease and arthritis, are inching forward at over 270 research sites around the world.

I’m having a hysterectomy.” Sloan’s face broke instantly. Her hand flew to her mouth. “What?” I’d finally gone for the nuclear option. I was done hemorrhaging for weeks at a time, suffering needlessly, not living my life. Enough was enough.

I know that there are countless women around the world who will identify with what I went through, but will never have their stories heard.

Fuck, wait—what if her future husband wants to knock her up? I sit forward and open up my search bar, hunting to see if there’s any way to perform a hysterectomy safely at home, but I fail to find a single article.

hunting to see if there’s any way to perform a hysterectomy safely at home, but I fail to find a single article.

Of course, Nicky refused the hysterectomy. She wanted to be a mother more than she wanted to be free. Or, rather, motherhood was the form of freedom she chose; not a life without pain, but a life assembled around it, love coupled forever with fear, a paper dollhouse built around an open flame. That was why she had been taking the painkillers, to hold off one kind of pain to make way for a better one.

I had been in the hospital for the last three days. I had suffered a miscarriage at the hands of my husband. There were some complications so I had to get a hysterectomy. I guess God really has the final say so. My days of having babies are over. The

In one case the surgeon’s peers defended his actions by saying, “Oh, he’s got four kids in college.”21 When his kids graduate, will he stop pulling out the scalpel so readily? In some for-profit hospitals, administrators set a quota of hysterectomies, knee surgeries, and other operations that surgeons are expected to perform every week, no matter which patients turn up.

You always know what to do,” she said. “Not always,” he said, holding her close. “Right now, for example. I’m not sure what to do.” “Why?” she asked, her eyes still closed, her face buried in his chest. “When are you going to tell me?” She lifted her head. “Tell you?” “About the baby.” “But Jack, you know the baby and mother are—” “The baby inside of you,” he said, placing a large hand over her flat tummy. A startled look crossed her features. She pushed him away a little bit. “Did someone say something to you?” she asked. “No one had to say anything. Please tell me I’m not the last to know.” “I just saw John yesterday—and how in the world would you know?” “Mel,” he said, running the back of one knuckle along her cheek, “your body’s changing. You haven’t had a period. For a while, I thought maybe you’d had a hysterectomy or something because I haven’t noticed a period since the first time we made love, but there’s a blue box under the bathroom sink. You don’t drink your beer, and you get nauseous from time to time. Not to mention being more tired than usual.” “Lord,” she said. “You never think a man will notice. Not things like that.” “Well?” She sighed. “I went to see John yesterday to confirm what I already suspected. I’m pregnant. Three months.” “You’re a midwife. How could you not know at three weeks?” “Because I assumed I was sterile. Infertile. Mark and I did everything to try to get a baby—even in vitro fertilization. To no avail. This was the last thing I ever expected.” “Ah,” he said, finally clear on why she might keep it from him. “So, here we are,” he said. “I’m sorry, Jack. You must think I’m an idiot.” He kissed her. “Of course not. Mel, I’m in love with you.” She was frozen for a second. “Oh, God,” she finally said, plummeted into tears. “Oh, God, Jack!” She buried her face in his chest and wept. “Hey, no reason to cry, baby. You a little surprised? No more than me,” he laughed. “I never thought this could happen to me. It hit me so hard, I damn near fell down. But I love you.” She continued to softly cry. “It’s okay, honey. It’ll be okay.” He stroked her hair. “You want to have a baby, obviously.” She lifted her head. “I wanted a baby so badly, I ached. But do you?” she asked. “I mean, you’re forty.” “I want everything with you. Everything. Besides, I like babies. And I’m wild about pregnant women.” “When did you decide you knew for sure?” she asked him. “At least a month ago.” He put a hand over her breast. “Sore? Haven’t you noticed the changes? Your nipples have darkened.” “I was in denial,” she said, wiping at her tears.

So yeah, I wanted to be away from her about as much as I wanted to put in for a hysterectomy.

When he saw her, he leaned the ax up against the stump and went to her. She smiled and walked into his arms. He crossed those arms under her bottom and brought her up to his face. “It was perfect,” she said. “I love the way those babies light you up.” She kissed him deeply and his arms tightened under her. “How are they doing?” “Preacher’s a little wobbly, but Paige and the baby are great.” “He’s been looking forward to it for so long,” Jack said. “He might’ve gotten himself a little too worked up. Maybe he peaked too soon,” she said. “Did you sleep?” she asked, touching his hair. “I don’t sleep when you work,” he said, touching her lips again. “Can I get you anything? Breakfast?” “That would be nice. My children will be awake by the time I get home.” “Was it hard, baby?” he asked. “After the hysterectomy?” She shook her head and smiled. “That wasn’t the hard part. There is nothing sad about bringing a new life to a couple as in love as they are.” She kissed him again. “I admit, I was thinking of one more, down the road a bit. I tend to think like that after ours are settled in bed and quiet….” “We have a lot more than either of us thought we’d get,” he said. “I’m dealing with it pretty well. I’m telling myself not to be greedy. As long as I have you—” He laughed, a rich, deep rumbling sound. “As if you could get rid of me now.” *

Mel was just here. She’s complaining about the food.” “Huh?” Jack answered. “Mel?” “Yeah. She says my food is making her fat.” Jack chuckled. “Oh, that. Yeah, she’s making noises about that. Don’t worry about it.” “She didn’t make it sound like I shouldn’t worry about it. She was pretty much loaded for bear.” “She had two babies in fourteen months, plus a hysterectomy. And—she doesn’t like to be reminded about this—she’s getting older in spite of herself. Women get a little thicker. You know.” “How do you know that?” “Four sisters,” Jack said. “It’s all women ever worry about—the size of their butts and boobs. And thighs—thighs come up a lot.” “She yelled at me,” he said, still kind of startled. Paul laughed and Jack just shook his head. “Did you tell her that?” Preacher asked. “About women getting thicker with age?” “Do I look like I have a death wish? Besides, I don’t think she’s getting fat—but my opinion about that doesn’t count for much.” “She wants salads. And fresh fruit.” “How hard is that?” Jack asked. “Not hard,” Preacher said with a shrug. “But I don’t stuff that pie down her neck every day.” A sputter of laughter escaped Paul, and Jack said, “You’re gonna want to watch that, Preach.” “She wants me to use less butter and cream, take a few calories out of my food. Jack, it isn’t going to taste as good that way. You can’t make sauces and gravies without cream, butter, fat, flour. People love that stuff, salmon in dill sauce, fettuccine Alfredo, stuffed trout, brisket and garlic mash. Stews with thick gravy. People come a long way for my food.” “Yeah, I know, Preach. You don’t have to change everything—but make Mel a little something, huh? A salad, a broiled chicken breast, fish without the cream sauce, that kind of thing. You know what to do. Right?” “Of course. You don’t think she wants everyone in this town on a diet? Because she says it’s not healthy, the way I cook.” “Nah. This is a phase, I think. But if you don’t want to hear any more about it, just give her lettuce.” He grinned. “And an apple instead of the pie.” Preacher shook his head. “See, I think no matter what she says, that’s going to make her pissy.” “She said it’s what she wants, right?” “Right.” “May the force be with you,” Jack said with a grin.

After my sister Sandra was born the doctors there per formed a hysterectomy on my mother, in fact sterilizing her without her permission, which was common at the time, and up to just a few years ago, so that it is hardly worth mentioning. In the opinion of some people, the fewer Indians there are, the better. As Colonel Chivington said to his soldiers: "Kill 'em all, big and small, nits make lice!

This is not science fiction. Around the world, 50,000 men with prostate cancer have been treated with focused ultrasound. Over 22,000 women with uterine fibroids (benign tumors of the uterus) have been treated, thus avoiding hysterectomies and infertility. Clinical trials for tumors of the brain, breast, pancreas and liver, as well as Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, and hypertension are inching forward at over 225 research sites around the world.

I have just had a hysterectomy. I expect you to have one too," she demanded.... " I am willing to have an apercetomy," Andrew suggested hopefully.

think my ovaries released at least three eggs, which is crazy considering I had a hysterectomy four years ago.

I also worried that the linguistic contortions embraced by highly educated liberals antagonized the 62 percent majority of the country that lacked a college degree and that resented being told to change their nomenclature. When The Lancet medical journal tried to avoid dehumanizing trans people by referring to "bodies with vaginas", many women felt dehumanized. I heard from an ICU nurse in Idaho who was told to ask each patient for their identity: male, female, both or neither. Some patients were bewildered, others offended or hurt. The nurse told of the unintended effect on one patient: "One woman, post hysterectomy with complications, burst into tears and said, "I hope I'm still a woman." The concern about stigmatizing trans people is legitimate, but overreach seems to me a fit to hard-right Republicans who campaign against wokeness; it's a self-inflicted error by Democrats.

or simple, hysterectomy, where the uterus is removed but the ovaries are left in place, will stop menstruation but not ovulation. As such, it will not prompt early menopause. However, hormonal production may decrease, and blood flow to the ovaries may be reduced, too. This may prompt the symptoms of menopause earlier than expected.

Note that a partial hysterectomy (removal of the uterus but not the ovaries), ovarian cyst removal, or endometrial ablation does not cause menopause but can affect blood flow to the ovaries, prompting menopausal symptoms at an earlier age.

ovarian preservation after menopause might still lower the risk of osteoporosis, heart disease and stroke later in life. As a result, current guidelines recommend ovarian conservation for postmenopausal women with no genetic or additional risks who are undergoing hysterectomy for benign reasons

Testing is instead recommended to evaluate fertility problems or when periods stop at an early age, as with POI. Another reason to test is for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal condition that can impact menstrual regularity and fertility. Labs may also help determine menopausal status for women who no longer have a period due to medical interventions. These include a partial hysterectomy (the surgical removal of the uterus but not the ovaries) or an endometrial ablation (a procedure that removes the lining of the uterus). These procedures stop your menstrual period but don’t stop ovulation. In this case, the occurrence of menopausal symptoms is the first indication of menopause, with blood work providing supporting evidence. In such cases, the levels of estrogen and other hormones, chiefly FSH and another hormone called inhibin B, are measured. Inhibin B regulates FSH production, and it can serve as a marker for ovarian function and follicular content. Normative

Don’t get sick, Victoria,” Kyle taunts as I retch, spilling my guts on the pavement, then forced to wallow in it as he holds me down for Lawrence to have his turn. “We’re just getting started.” “Don’t get sick, Kyle. We’re just getting started,” I say, slicing through another finger, taking one more digit that once held me in place. As he cries out, more memories assault me, and tears of pure hatred skid down my cheeks unexpectedly. “The daughter of a whore and a fucking pussy. You see, I know your dad never had the balls to kill those women. I just don’t care. Now take it, Victoria. Take it and shut the hell up.” “Take it!” I shout, slicing through another finger. “Take it and shut the hell up!” Jake holds him down harder as I work through all ten fingers, then tie up the damage, preventing him from bleeding too much. Kyle is a sobbing mess, but I wasn’t lying. We’re just getting started. “Your turn, Tyler. Saddle up. It’s bareback and fun tonight,” Kyle goads, grabbing my naked crotch and then slapping it. “It’s getting a little worn out.” “This is for me,” I hiss, slicing the blade down his torso, scooting back as he screams in agony. The slice is just shallow enough to burn like fire but not deep enough to bleed too much. Another memory surfaces, one that has my heart being suffocated and squeezed to death. “I’m sorry, Ms. Carlyle. But it seems like the damage done to your internal organs and the life saving measures they took at the hospital have prevented you from ever being able to have children. They were forced to perform an emergency hysterectomy.” More tears cascade down my cheeks as I slice him to the side, slowly flaying a piece of flesh from his body like the monstrous pro I’ve become. “This is for my father,” I tell him, carving another section.

I sit forward and open up my search bar, hunting to see if there’s any way to perform a hysterectomy safely at home, but I fail to find a single article.

I learned new words that day: endometriosis, fibroids, hysterectomy. She had been in pain for months. She never told me why she had not sought treatment earlier; there could have been any number of reasons. What I now know is that my parents' employment at the time was tenuous, and we had no health coverage.

She knew why I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be with another man. I didn’t want anyone else. I stuck my finger in the pile of red mud on the pedestal. “I won’t be having sex with anyone else until after the hysterectomy.

The actual abdominal hysterectomy procedure cost in Hyderabad is determined by a variety of factors, including the hospital's location, and the quality of equipment, however, the average Hysterectomy surgery cost in Hyderabad can range between 1,10,000 and 3,75,000 rupees.

Hysterectomies are widely available, but even women who don’t want children aren’t exactly lining up to get them.

Women who had often done little more than manifest behaviours that were out of feminine bounds (such as having a libido) were incarcerated for years in asylums. They were given hysterectomies and clitoridectomies. Women were locked up for having even mild post-natal depression: the grandmother of a friend of mine spent her life in an asylum after throwing a scourer at her mother-in-law. At least one US psychiatric textbook, still widely in use during the 1970s, recommended lobotomies for women in abusive relationships.62

Trained Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in Dubai Dr Elsa de Menezes Fernandes is a UK trained Obstetrician and Gynaecologist. She completed her basic training in Goa, India, graduating from Goa University in 1993. After Residency, she moved to the UK, where she worked as a Senior House Officer in London at the Homerton, Southend General, Royal London and St. Bartholomew’s Hospitals in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She completed five years of Registrar and Senior Registrar training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in London at The Whittington, University College, Hammersmith, Ealing and Lister Hospitals and Gynaecological Oncology at the Hammersmith and The Royal Marsden Hospitals. During her post-graduate training in London she completed Membership from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In 2008 Dr Elsa moved to Dubai where she worked as a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Mediclinic City Hospital until establishing her own clinic in Dubai Healthcare City in March 2015. She has over 20 years specialist experience. Dr Elsa has focused her clinical work on maternal medicine and successfully achieved the RCOG Maternal Medicine Special Skills Module. She has acquired a vast amount of experience working with high risk obstetric patients and has worked jointly with other specialists to treat patients who have complex medical problems during pregnancy. During her training she gained experience in Gynaecological Oncology from her time working at St Bartholomew’s, Hammersmith and The Royal Marsden Hospitals in London. Dr Elsa is experienced in both open and laparoscopic surgery and has considerable clinical and operative experience in performing abdominal and vaginal hysterectomies and myomectomies. She is also proficient in the technique of hysteroscopy, both diagnostic and operative for resection of fibroids and the endometrium. The birth of your baby, whether it is your first or a happy addition to your family, is always a very personal experience and Dr Elsa has built a reputation on providing an experience that is positive and warmly remembered. She supports women’s choices surrounding birth and defines her role in the management of labour and delivery as the clinician who endeavours to achieve safe motherhood. She is a great supporter of vaginal delivery. Dr Elsa’s work has been published in medical journals and she is a member of the British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society. She was awarded CCT (on the Specialist Register) in the UK. Dr Elsa strives to continue her professional development and has participated in a wide variety of courses in specialist areas, including renal diseases in pregnancy and medical complications in pregnancy.

It would also be up to the oncologist to determine during the surgery whether I got to keep my ovaries. Unlike a simple hysterectomy, an oophorectomy would deprive my body of estrogen and progesterone, plunging me into sudden, premature menopause with all its attendant horrors. If that happened, I could look forward to an increased risk of depression, anxiety, heart disease, arthritis, and bone loss. This was in addition to the usual side effects of menopause like hot flashes, fatigue, mood swings, and vaginal dryness, which were typically more intense for women who hadn’t started menopause naturally

When she had to have a hysterectomy, my brother went to visit her in the hospital. He lived in some shabby rooming houses and apartments. He teased my mother: You got rid of the first place I lived! she replied: The nicest place you've ever lived!

My own efforts to avoid increasingly numerous food allergies motivated my heavy reliance on sweet potatoes for over 10 years. Sweet potatoes made it easy for me to avoid wheat, soy, and other legumes that I thought were fueling my extreme fatigue and hormonal issues. It didn’t work. Despite careful avoidance of allergens, I went on to need a total hysterectomy, and my fatigue progressed to a devastating collapse that ended my working life and my ability to exercise.

In one case, a teenage girl who was twelve weeks pregnant came to the Boston hospital for an abortion. She was told that it was too late for her to have a regular abortion and that a hysterectomy was necessary. When the medical student who observed the operation asked a resident why such drastic action was taken, the resident replied that the doctor “wanted a hysterectomy done for the experience.

Joshua…” I spun around and had her in my arms in a heartbeat. “Kristen, oh God, thank you,” I breathed, kissing the side of her neck. It was like a reprieve from a prison sentence, seeing her. I was stuck here for two days, two days that I wouldn’t be able to get to her, and she’d come to me. But she didn’t hug me back. She put her hands to my chest and tried to make space between us. “Josh, I just came to talk to you, okay?” I didn’t take my hands from her waist. Her face was puffy, like she’d been up all night crying. Deep circles under her eyes. I leaned in to kiss her and she turned from me. “I need you to stand over there.” She nodded to the kitchen counter. “Please.” If she left, I wouldn’t be able to go after her. I was on shift and couldn’t leave the station. I didn’t want to let her go, but I didn’t want her to run off again, so I stepped back. She wore leggings and one of her off-the-shoulder shirts that I loved, and even though she looked tired, she was the most beautiful woman I’d even seen. And she loves me. I didn’t even know what I did to deserve her, but I knew I’d do anything to make up for the way I’d made her feel. She took a deep breath. “I’m having a partial hysterectomy the week after the wedding,” she said flatly. “I have uterine fibroids. They’re tumors that grow on the walls of my uterus. Mine are imbedded. They can’t be surgically removed, and they didn’t respond to treatment. They cause heavy bleeding and cramping. And…and infertility.” She said the last word like she had to force it out. She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked away from me, tears welling in her beautiful eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was embarrassing for me. And I don’t need you to say anything. I just needed you to know why. Because it was never my intention to make you feel unwanted.” Her chin quivered and my heart broke. “I did want you, Josh.” She looked back at me. “I always have. You didn’t imagine anything.” The admission that she’d wanted me made my heart reach for her. I took a step toward her, and she took a step back. I put my hands up. “Kristen, nothing has changed. My feelings for you haven’t changed. I want you, no matter what. I’m so sorry—I didn’t know. When I said—” She shook her head. “Josh, this isn’t open for discussion. I didn’t come here to tell you so you could decide whether you want to date me. That’s not even on the table. I just realized that for the last few weeks, I made you feel unloved. And I’m really sorry. I thought you…well, I didn’t know you had feelings for me. I thought only I…Anyway, that’s my fault. I should have never let that happen.” I scoffed. “There was nothing you could have done to keep me from falling in love with you. Even if I’d known this from the very beginning, it wouldn’t have kept me away. You should have told me.” “No, I should have stayed away from you,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t.

They cut you open and scrape it all out, scoop it from you like the innards of a melon. The knots of flesh and malevolent cells. Scoop, scratch, snip. It's all gone. Everything that sat there, waiting inside you. Biding its time from girlhood to womanhood, knowing all the secrets, promising all the gifts. One day, your body whispers in your ear. One day you will perform miracles with your flesh. Ovaries. Womb. Gone. Eradicated. You weep for what is lost, but the tears wash nothing away, they just empty you out even further.

She was reluctant to pull the trigger on the hysterectomy this time because we’d gotten lucky once. But after over a year of it, we saw Oliver for what he was—a miracle. And one that wouldn’t repeat itself.

In spite of every precaution to preserve my privacy, some details of my surgery did leak out in the press...it was an extremely personal and intimate procedure in my medical history, I had no wish to share its details with the rest of the world, any more than a complete hysterectomy would be advertised by another woman.

You might have heard that testosterone comes with bad side effects—but you’ll rarely hear them mentioned here. YouTube and Insta gurus are about fun, and increased risks of various cancers and prophylactic hysterectomy are certainly not that.

These include longer hospital stay; longer and more painful recovery; higher risk of infection, organ damage, adhesions, hemorrhage, embolism, and hysterectomy; more blood loss; higher chance of rehospitalization; higher chance of a complication with the next pregnancy; less initial contact with the baby; less success breastfeeding; higher risk of respiratory problems for the baby; and twice the risk of the most catastrophic complication of all: maternal death.51

Josh leaned next to me against the examining table where I sat with my bare legs dangling. He held my hand so I couldn’t fidget. “Does it always take this long?” he asked, checking his watch. His wedding ring was on his watch hand and I smiled at it, despite being cold and nervous. The inscription inside his ring said “okay.” I’d had my ring sized, and Josh had it inscribed with “my universe.” We were adorable. We were also hungry. It had been almost a half an hour since the ultrasound tech finished taking images. Nobody had been back since, and I’d had to fast for a glucose test. Josh hadn’t eaten in solidarity, so we were both starving. I sighed. “I don’t know how long this takes. I’ve never had a pre-op for a hysterectomy before.” We’d been married four weeks. It had been a hectic month. Josh had moved in with me, but we realized almost on day one that we needed a place closer to Sloan. Both of us were there more than we were at home. We asked her to move in with us and she’d flatly refused. We asked to move in with her and she refused that too. So we’d been house hunting in addition to merging our lives, launching our new line of doghouses, and taking care of my best friend. Josh had taken on all the home repairs that Brandon hadn’t gotten to. He cooked most of our meals, and I spent almost every day still getting her out of bed, cleaning her house, trying to cheer her up. She wasn’t getting any better.

Literature and writing is more than a career,” I say. “Exactly,” she says. “It is a lifestyle. It is a lifetime passion. An artist needs to be ambitious and passionate. You don’t work nine to five. You breathe your art twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That’s why you should consider a hysterectomy.

Alongside “Mississippi appendectomies” (which was another name for unnecessary hysterectomies performed at teaching hospitals in the South on Black women), there was the forced sterilization of Indigenous Americans, which persisted into the 1970s and ’80s, with young women receiving tubal ligations when they were ostensibly getting appendectomies. Ultimately an estimated 25 to 50 percent of Indigenous women were sterilized between 1970 and 1976. Forced sterilization programs are also a part of history in Puerto Rico, where sterilization rates are said to be among the highest in the world. Most recently, California prisons were alleged to have authorized coerced sterilization of nearly 150 female inmates between 2006 and 2010.

Isn't that ironic?" I commented. "What, because we're not 'real women'?" She made air quotes. "Why aren't we real women−because we don't have uteruses? What about women who have hysterectomies? Or mastectomies?

A study conducted in a managed-care medical group in California found that 70% of hysterectomies were inappropriate (Broder et al, 2000).

women in a state of revolution.  I saw them getting up out of their beds and refusing the knife, refusing to be tied down, refusing to submit – whether they are in childbirth or when they were forty and having a hysterectomy for a uterus no longer considered useful.  Women’s health care will not improve until women reject the present system and begin instead to develop less destructive means of creating and maintaining a state of wellness.

When we arrive, prepare for sterilization,” he continued. What? Luna looked over at Aurora, who shrugged. Phoebe shuddered and looked away. Times like these, Luna hated her chip. She knew it wasn’t rational to expect to learn a thousand or more languages, but context was important. Was she about to get a bath? Or a hysterectomy?

I should call my gynecologist first thing in the morning and schedule a hysterectomy. My reproductive organs have gone insane.