Why and who's Henry?

This is not my online attempt to garner sympathy or pity, there are those in the world going through much more than I have and those who are facing much greater challenges. My goal is to help prevent for others some of the things that happened to me through doctors not giving complete information so that maybe, just maybe, someone else will be able to make better informed decisions or at minimum, ask questions. At age 49 my menstrual periods began to get worse, by age 50 I was bleeding for days on end, passing large clots. The exact diagnosis was menorrhagia, which created a low hemoglobin count, weakness, pain and anemia.

Enter mistake number one...Dr. Kristel L. Ward (no relation).

I went to Dr. Ward because she was recommended by several friends. They said she was compassionate, caring and would help. She did not appear very sympathetic about the pain aspect, nor did she offer any pharmacological options (which I found out later existed). She recommended an ablation, not a water based one but a mesh one, the water method was never mentioned, nor was the data that suggests a water ablation decreases the chance that the uterus will react negatively to the ablation.

Putting it simply, a water ablation tends to not piss off your uterus and if the first one is not completely a success can be repeated, the mesh version where mesh is inserted into your uterus and basically electricity blasts off the uterus lining, is a one shot deal. I was told to expect cramping after the ablation. What I did not expect was the almost immediate failure of the ablation to control the heavy bleeding and the pain was actually worse after the ablation than before.



Enter mistake number two...Dr. Terry Gibbs.

I went to Dr. Gibbs because I had gone to him in the past and I had felt at the time he was honest and caring. Dr. Gibbs is the one that told me that the mesh ablation had basically made my uterus angry and now the only option was a hysterectomy though he did prescribe a drug (Lysteda) that helped with the bleeding and he seemed surprised that Dr. Ward had not tried that before the ablation. So why was Dr. Gibbs a mistake since at this point he seems awesome?

Beyond promising me that this hysterectomy would solve everything, give me my life back and assured me that I'd have a return of my sex life which may be even more awesome, which did not prove to be true thanks to Henry -- He forgot to tell me one critical thing, which created the birth of Henry ... that since I had had four c-sections, every increased incision on the same line (mine was the traditional from the belly button down) increased the chance of an incisional hernia, or in my case ... Henry.

I was tempted by the promise of the removal of my last c-section scar being basically a mini-tummy tuck and never told of the increased risk, which given my personal experience with odds ... I would have opted for a bikini cut incision line and would extremely reduced, if not prevented Henry's arrival.

The night Henry arrived, I had no idea what had happened, one moment I was fine, the next moment, this lump appeared near my pelvic region accompanied by a burning pain. When I laid down, it was gone but as soon as I stood up? This horrible burning pain and the lump.

I called Dr. Gibbs in a panic, he never bothered to return my call. I went to the ER, at Flower Hospital, since that's where I had my hysterectomy, and I was treated as if it was no big deal, that I should have expected it given the number of abdominal incisions I had on the same line.

I called Dr. Gibbs three more times that weekend, not knowing what I should do next. He never returned my calls, though a week later I got a letter from his office asking me to call. I didn't bother, I knew by then he couldn't do hernia surgery and that Henry the hernia was now my problem to deal with alone.

Enter mistake number three...renown local hernia surgeon, Dr. Peter Dziad.

More as to why he was mistake number three later...