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Not really a blog – just a place to record notes for the August 2025 Newsletter for anyone who wanted a bit more info and a place where I could record a few things for myself. Updated for 2026 at the bottom. 

On 7 July 2025, I had a hysterectomy.  It was a big thing, as were the months leading up to it.  As will be the months ahead in terms of rest and recovery. Headline though – I am well, and recovering well with no follow up treatment needed.  After months of upheaval I feel back on solid ground.

Here’s a bit of detail:

• March/April 2025: unexplained bleeding, clearly an issue given I’d been on HRT for 10 years and am 61yrs old.  GP appointment end of April.  Then an ultrasound that showed the lining of the uterus was too thick.  A hysteroscopy/biopsy at end of May showed pre cancerous cells and a couple of iffy (my GP’s word) polyps.  A hysterectomy booked for 7 July. Fast and efficient – the NHS Cancer Pathway where the next thing should happen within 2 weeks and it pretty much always did.

 

• This was the second time of sitting with the word cancer. 3 years ago I had had a call back from a mammogram and that second scan was negative – but had resulted in me having some different conversations with the universe.   This time, even though I always felt it was minor (apart from the bone cancer tests – read on) and would be ‘fixed’ by the op, it was most certainly a shift for me.  A reminder of mortality.

 

• Other than my experience with one doctor, I have felt really well supported by the NHS throughout and still do.

 

• Op was straightforward – one hour, laparoscopy, and I was back home that night. Full biopsy results 3 weeks later showed that there had been cancer in the womb, but it was Stage 1A/Grade 1 which meant it was a) early and b) all contained withing the womb and so they got it all out which means no further treatment needed.

 

• In that time between May and the op, I also had a month having tests for bone cancer. This time was truly awful.  A very scary prospect, looking into a possible future that had bone cancer in it – and it did take to me to some very tricky places in my head – I was a bit of a mess for all of that month.  Thankfully everything came back all clear.

 

• What caused the pre cancerous cells? Likely being under prescribed progesterone to balance the levels of oestrogen I was taking as HRT. I was with a private clinic in London from the days when I was working there a lot. I chose them because they were specialists in HRT and did a full blood review etc every year. I haven’t yet worked out what I say to them.

 

• First NHS gynae doctor I had was pretty shocking – he did an insensitive (at best) and at times almost brutal hysteroscopy with no pain relief when he could see the pain was barely tolerable (his words, from his notes) for me ; later, he failed to tell me that there was an alternative to a hysterectomy and I didn’t discover that until the Friday before my op (which was on the Monday); he hadn’t sent me any of the key information about having a hysterectomy that would have meant I had a fuller picture of options – again got all that one working day before my op; he delivered the news that I needed tests for bone cancer with the minimum of information that meant I went into some form of body-shock/somatic response. Yes, there’s a letter in draft to the Trust. (And I went on to have a different doctor – a woman – who was also my surgeon who is awesome.)

 

• The day after hearing about the need for tests for bone cancer, I developed what I thought was a virus. Body aches like a very bad flu, couldn’t move my neck, head or eye without a lot of pain and stiffness. Felt very ill, never experienced anything quite like it.  Took 2 full weeks to go. A homeopath suggested it wasn’t a virus but the shock response to being (badly) told about the need for bone cancer tests.  I also had some Somatic Experiencing work post op and that practitioner described it as the freeze response to trauma. I think they were right and it was powerful and extraordinary to learn how the body/mind link can really work – I knew this in theory, but to live it was something else.

 

• Today, as at the start of August, recovering well, albeit with some unexpected checkups with some odd things occurring (trip to A&E for sudden major bleeding, and some extremely violent vomiting in response to antibiotics) But all settling down and aside from keeping my physical activity to the level of someone of about 80 yrs old and watching my hard-won muscle mass disappearing, things are starting to feel a bit more normal.  Back working part time.

Along the way:

• All through May and June while this was brewing, my thoughts and feelings were a complete jumble. I was all over the place. And I was ok with that – totally to be expected. I was able to watch and observe myself and be deeply compassionate about what was happening. But what I couldn’t really do was talk to people about what I was in the middle of. I had no idea which part of the massively complex and deep bag of feelings, fears, thoughts, imaginings, information etc to pull out and talk about. They all felt important and I had no idea what to share and so I tended to share the minimum. I was grateful for those people who expected nothing from me.

 

• One of the biggest source of my sadness and grief as I got ready for the hysterectomy was something others had little time for.  It was what the whole process would do to my body.  All my life,  I have done what I can to be as fit and healthy, strong, flexible, mobile and active.  In earlier years, running, rock-climbing, mountaineering, cycling.  Latterly short walks and long distance walks, swimming in the pool and the sea, yoga and pilates, weights –  movement and mobility is right at the heart of what I love. I’m so proud of what my amazing body can do.  And I would lose that.  Not for ever, sure.  But when I could restart, in 3 months or so, it would be pretty tough to build back up again.  I’d lose a year of what I so loved.  I know.  Big deal.  But it was a very big deal for me.  Now that I’m this side of things, I am way more accepting of this – and that’s been good to experience.

 

• Across the months, something that helped me – particularly as I contemplated possible bone cancer – was the training I’ve been doing for about a year in end-of-life care, and which continues for a further year.   It’s meant I’ve been thinking about and talking about death and dying, including cancer, quite a lot.  Spending time volunteering in a hospice. Getting used to death and dying being included, accepted as part of life.

 

• Oh, and it turns out that becoming really passive and losing my capacity to question and persist with questions is actually a Thing when it comes to being a patient when faced with doctors, experts, a health system that is mostly linear.  The number of times I looked back on a conversation with a consultant and thought ‘where the hell did I disappear to!?’ and wonder where all the questions I had in my mind beforehand went.  I found this both fascinating and shocking.

 

• Another major surprise: how very few people could stay with me and listen to me as I started talking about, for example, my fears, worse case scenarios, what I was already grieving in how my body and life would likely change. The possibility of grim treatment and perhaps an early death re the bone cancer scans. Most people couldn’t stay there with me. Most people wanted me to be more positive. They would say ‘things won’t be that bad’.  Rescue.  They’d share things from their own experience or someone else’s experience that was pretty much at odds with my own. All I can say is that didn’t work for me, and I mostly just shut down. I know I might be a bit unusual here, in my capacity to be with a more pessimistic view of things and still be wholly ok.  For me, it’s a form of building personal resilience.  And I most certainly understand why people do that – move to reassure and comfort, push uncomfortable things away. But I definitely worked out who I could talk to (only a few people) and who I didn’t reach out to. It also made me realise think that I likely do a bit of that myself, of course, and got me more tuned in to when I might be rescuing, say, instead of just holding space for someone.

 

• I have been deeply grateful from the start that: I live in a country that has superb care facilities that I don’t have to pay for and a health service that creaks but is also remarkable; that I am able to take time off work without it being a crisis; that I have a husband who’s not only retired and therefore very available but put himself fully in service of me and my recovery; that I was fit and well enough pre op to likely make a strong recovery; I am so well supported with friends and colleagues (so many flowers!); that I had  garden to shuffle around in in my nightie and the first few weeks of recovery coincided with a heatwave …and so much more.

 

• As I write, I am about 4-5 weeks post op. It’s taken me until now to start to even think about turning towards the meaning I want to make from this experience. For example: what might be different on the other side – inevitably and by choice? What does it means to be a woman of 61 and have no womb, uterus and ovaries? Do  I think of myself as someone who’s had a hysterectomy (and they happened to find some early cancer) or someone who has had a cancer diagnosis (and for whom the hysterectomy was the treatment)? And more.

Ok, that’s about it for now.  I might add to this as the weeks go on. Thanks for reading.

H x

 

13 Sept and about 10 weeks post op: things are going well if painfully slowly.  Back at work.  A regular life now although avoiding lifting.  Back doing 10,000 steps a day,  and (joy!) have the stamina for do an hour or two up on the South Downs.  Am working 1:1 with a Pilates teacher for some rehab work.  But anything more than this will have to wait until at least mid October.  And swimming even longer as I still have occasional spotting from a rogue suture which is sticking out when it shouldn’t be and irritating the surrounding tissue. But getting there, I am.

 

31 December 2025 – almost 6 months post op:  all good.

• Physically all mended and back to functioning well  – back to long walks, weights, pilates etc.
• It’s taken until now to feel my stamina is approaching what it was, and it will take a while more yet, I think.  It’s not that I can’t do the things (a swim or a long train journey or some demanding client work in person) but that I notice how tired I am in the following hours/next day. It gets better each month.  But I still need to build in rest time, down time.  I do love an afternoon nap, something I learned was helpful when I had CFS about 15 years ago, so I already have that practice nailed 🙂
• I’m avoiding using the phrase ‘back to normal’.  Why would I want that normal when, to be frank, it was a bit punishing.  Too much performative stuff, too much pushing my body when it was trying to tell me to be gentler. Working too much.
• It’s taken me until about now to even start to make sense of the experience and to get in touch with what is different, and with what I want to be different.  I’ve had a go at making a start on that in naming these things for 2026.
• From time to time, someone will ask me if I have grieved for the fact that I no longer have a womb, uterus and ovaries.  My response if generally yes (and I think I did a lot on ‘anticipatory grieving’ beforehand) but I do feel as if people are expecting some thing more from me!
• On a hysterectomy FB group someone said ‘it took me a year to find myself again’ and I’m understanding that now.

7 April 2026 – 9 months post op

• Still avoiding using the phrase ‘back to normal’ as things are different now
• What’s different?  Several things but mostly, my appetite for working hard has reduced. I’m way less willing to contort myself to make something work for a client.  Adapt and flex, for sure.  But not contort.  This is really good.  For years I’ve been curious about why I keep driving myself pretty hard with work and travel. And wondering when I would stop doing that and what would be the prompt.  So it turns out that having a hysterectomy is the prompt.
• As it happens, this relaxation of effort is coinciding with a drop off in work and I’m really enjoying that.  I’m not stressed or minding about loss of income (I have enough) but I am noticing how I am expanding to fill the space –  not doing any marketing or networking for work (I’ve never needed to do that and I’m not likely to start now) but in doing thing like: protecting time for long walks on the South Downs, more trips to the beach, visiting friends and spending more relaxed time with them, I’m booking a 3 weeks holiday in Sept and Oct – classically peak time for my line of work …  I’ve also started an art practice which I really never through I’d do.  I’m such a beginner but I’m loving it – it’s more ‘mark making’ than anything else but I have booked a proper watercolour lesson at the end of April. I barely recognise myself – but this is a part of me that’s been neglected and shoved to one side as I made work more important.
• And when work has come in, I’ve been much more discerning about whether I say yes to it.  One piece of work I pulled out of as the travel felt too much.  For another one, I said ‘count me out’ as it was clear I’d need to make so many compromises on what I felt was the integrity of the work because the budget was too small.  This is good.

 

H x

 

(pic: Jo Sweeting)