Surgery

Reader’s Choice : Enough is ENOUGH!

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text that reads "Enough"

A personal choice for every person with Endometriosis : When have I suffered enough pain and when do I step up the treatment?

Some prefer natural methods of controlling their Endometriosis symptoms : supplements, vitamins, diet, and essential oils.  But these methods may not work for everyone. I’ve gone the route of prescription narcotics, surgery, hormonal treatments, eastern medicine, acupuncture, altered diet, etc. Others may have undergone hysterectomies.

When and how do you decide which is right for you?  Only you know the answer to that question.

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Surgery – What if I can’t afford it?

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 So I was hit in the face with an astronomical Estimate of Benefits from my insurance carrier after my June 30, 2014, surgery.  The breakdown was: surgery, anesthesiology, pathology, etc. was approximately $71,000! (Insert double-take here) After the insurance company applied their deductions and waivers, the remaining bill was $13,000.  The insurance paid for a little over $12,000 of that bill and my my out-of-pocket costs were $800.  Which I readily paid!  (It really is a depressing sign of the inflated costs of American healthcare)

BUT what happens if you need a robotic laparoscopic excision surgery for Endometriosis and you cannot afford the hefty bill?  It’s a question I’m concerned about given the fact that women with Endometriosis routinely require multiple excision surgeries.  What happens if my insurance denies the next one? Or my insurance plan changes? Or I suddenly become unemployed?

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Readers Choice : Hysterectomies & Endo

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Hystery (haha) of Hysterectomies

The first recorded vaginal hysterectomy was in the 2nd Century AD, performed by Soranus of Epheus for a prolapsed uterus.  During the 18th Century, there was a 90% mortality rate for women who underwent hysterectomies.   And in 1843, Dr. Clay performed the first successful subtotal hysterectomy in Manchester, England, although the poor women died several days after her surgery. In 1847, chloroform was introduced as an anesthesia during surgeries, but due to it’s toxicity, surgeries had to be performed within one hour.  In 1853, Dr. Burnham of Massachusetts, performed the first successful abdominal subtotal hysterectomy with a surviving patient.  Interestingly enough, it was somewhat accidental: while excising an ovarian cyst, his patient vomited (there was no anesthesia) and the force of her vomiting pushed the uterus out of the abdominal incision. Unable to return the uterus to the cavity, Dr. Burnham was forced to remove it.  During his next 15 hysterectomies, he only lost 3 patients.  In 1878, German doctor, Freund, introduced the first reproducible “simple” hysterectomy; and in 1898, Austrian doctor, Schauta and his student Wertheim, performed the first successful radical hysterectomy for uterine cancer. In 1929, Dr. Richardson of the United States performed the first total abdominal hysterectomy.  France introduced the gynecological laparoscopic surgery in the1940s; however, the first laparoscopic hysterectomy was not performed until 1988 by Dr. Reich.  The DaVinci robotic laparascopic system was approved by the FDA in 2000 and the first robotic laparoscopic hysterectomy was performed in 2005.

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I <3 my Robot

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In June of 2014, my surgeon opted to perform a robotic laparoscopic surgery to remove the cysts from my ovaries.  Little did we know, the surgery would progress into an excision surgery to remove Endometriosis implants that we didn’t know existed inside.  A traditional laparoscopic surgery is performed through a rather large incision in your abdomen, while robotic is done through small “ports” (incisions) where robotic tools are inserted and the doctor operates at a remote station, controlling the wee robotic arms. AND there’s pictures!

The surgeon’s plan was to go through my bellybutton, extending it a little bit with a small incision, remove the cysts, and close up my bellybutton (a single incision laparascopy). Voila: done.  However, it was discussed that he may need to open up multiple ports if things “weren’t as they seemed” once inside  (the middle image below).  Which is exactly what needed to be done.  The robotic surgery avoided the traditional, large incision (first image below).

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