Pushing Surgery on Vulnerable People

Artist Unknown

I’m a person with two X chromosomes, aka, a woman. After menopause, I was still experiencing bleeding once a year. It was discovered that I had simple endometrial hyperplasia with normal cells and a uterus full of little fibroids and polyps. This means that I have a 1.5% greater chance than a woman with no endometrial hyperplasia of developing endometrial cancer. 

My OB/GYN was pushing me to have a hysterectomy. My GP was pushing me to have a hysterectomy. The doctor who would be performing the surgery was pushing me to have a hysterectomy.

In the end, I decided that for a very small increase in the possibility of developing endometrial cancer, the risks of hysterectomy were not worth it. If I had abnormal cells and/or complex hyperplasia, I would have had the hysterectomy because the increase in the chance of developing endometrial cancer at that point is 36% greater than for a woman with no hyperplasia.

Further, I feel like there continues to be a pervasive attitude that a post-menopausal woman is no longer able to function as a baby factory, so why should she keep her uterus?

If for no other reason than not wanting to spend two months recovering from major surgery, I tend to be very conservative about having major surgery. I always believe in trying less invasive and catastrophic methods prior to having permanent alterations made to my body.

The Trans Cult convinces vulnerable people that having life-altering surgery performed is THE only way to deal with feelings of dysphoria.

I also have a degree of body dysmorphic disorder and am a large person who tried to hate myself thin over the course of 33 years. It didn’t work.

Instead of having gastric bypass surgery, which would have permanently altered my ability to eat normally (as it happens, I inadvertently end up restricting my food intake because I am food insecure) I did a lot of exploring and discovered the concepts of size acceptance and health at every size. I ended up instead of having a healthy organ (my stomach) amputated telling the diet industry and hateful attitudes towards fat people to go fuck themselves.

I don’t see myself as beautiful and I never will. But I use techniques to cope with my low self-esteem rather than permanently altering my body.

Being a girl in this society is rough. I’m honestly glad that encouraging kids to transition wasn’t a thing when I was young, or I might have ended up believing that I was “actually a boy” because I hated the way girls were treated. Honestly, with the way girls are treated in this society, who would want to be a girl?

Call me crazy, but isn’t it better to fight back against the sexism and homophobia which make people think that they “should” be the opposite sex rather than having procedures to turn you into a permanent medical patient. Shouldn’t you at least give the least invasive option a try first?

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Sly Speaks: Why I Noped Out of my Hysterectomy

I'm 53 years old and I have a history of sexual trauma and issues with my endocrine system including my reproductive system. I have PCOS. I have a degree of endometriosis, and I have polyps and fibroids in my uterus. The fibroids are small, not some grapefruit-sized thing.

I avoided having pelvic exams for close to 30 years because of past sexual trauma and fear of being shamed for being a larger person. I finally found a doctor I could trust to be honest with about my plumbing problems, so to speak. I see her quarterly because of my endocrine issues. When I told her that I had my "annual period" and was hoping this would be the last year for that mess, she said that wasn't normal and referred me to a gynecologist.

The gynecologist was a very sweet person who made me feel at ease. She never shamed me for my size. She did a D&C, which sucked because I felt like someone had been up in my business with a cheese grater, but I wanted to rule out cancer. The biopsy showed that I have simple endometrial hyperplasia with no cellular atypia. My risk of developing uterine cancer is 1.6% greater than the risk for someone who has no hyperplasia.

Hyperplasia is par for the course in someone with diabetes and PCOS. I produce too much estrogen. My primary care doctor is having me try a bio-identical progesterone, which may reverse some of the issues with my plumbing. One can always hope.

I was scheduled to have a hysterectomy, but I canceled the night before. Let me be clear that I'm not fanatical about women keeping their uterus come hell or high water. My son's best friend's mother had such horrible endometriosis that it had invaded her digestive tract. Some people have fibroids the size of a full-term fetus. There is no reason that these people should be forced to keep an organ that is malfunctioning to that degree. But this is not my case.

I always had miserable periods from hell and was glad when they came to an end. Initially, I was gung-ho to get rid of my reproductive organs, but after doing some research I realized I might be trading one problem for another (i.e. my incontinence could get significantly worse) and the inside of my hoo-hah could turn into the Great Southern Desert for the remainder of my life. In the end, it didn't seem worth it to undergo major surgery for a 1.6% higher risk of possible uterine cancer down the line.

Although two of the doctors involved in the process are women themselves (the person who would have done the surgery is a man) and they were all respectful to me, not a single one of them said a thing about the downside of having a hysterectomy. I think that doctors are taught to have this attitude that post-menopausal women are no longer able to have children, so why not just take the uterus out? But major surgery comes with risks. For me to agree to it, the risks have to outweigh the benefits, and they simply do not in this case.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright Juliahenze @123rf.com