vaginal cuff cellulitis & bacteremia - healed
hi everyone. I was waiting to make this post until the infection resolved because I didn't want to scare anyone, I just wanted to share in case this might be helpful to someone post-op.
about 8.5 weeks ago, I had a robotic-assisted laparoscopic total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingectomy (uterus, cervix, and both fallopian tubes removed, kept ovaries). during the surgery they also found/confirmed endometriosis and excised what they could see/get to.
my recovery for the first few weeks went pretty well (no gas pains, abdominal incisions healing well, limited post-op pain, no bleeding, etc). I showered less than 24 hours post-op, had no constipation, had a good appetite, etc. my one week post-op appointment went well, just some bruising around the abdominal incisions that would go away over time. I had to go back to work in-person on day 6 post-op, so I was grateful to be recovering well. I have a sedentary desk job, so my partner drove me to work and picked me up. when I got home I would just shower, eat, and go to bed early. things were going pretty well, and I felt such a drastic reduction in pain from the endometriosis flares I would have before the surgery.
just shy of two weeks post-op, I started feeling really run down. at first I chalked it up to the surgery still being pretty recent, but it felt like I had pretty good energy levels before and then I was going backwards. exactly two weeks post-op, I started a spiking a low fever (100.6-100.9). it went away with Tylenol, so I went to work the next day, but then I spiked a fever at work. I called the on-call doc at my surgeon's office after work and they said to get checked out, so I went to the ER. they did some blood work and I had elevated white blood cells and they did a CT scan to make sure I didn't have an abcess (I didn't). they said my abdominal incisions looked good, so it might be a vaginal cuff infection. they did a vaginal swab (no pelvic exam, just a swab) and said they would do a culture and sent me home with clindamycin (a cream suppository antibiotic). they didn't seem super concerned in the ER, so I went back to work the next day. I did the clindamycin for the 7 days as prescribed, and I felt a little bit better, so I just chalked the remaining fatigue/weakness/discomfort up to being still pretty early in recovery.
the week after I finished the clindamycin, I started feeling even more run down. I'm talking drowsy, like I was going to fall asleep at my desk. I had started to drive myself to work, but around 4 weeks post-op there were two back-to-back days where I drove myself to work and had to call my partner to pick me up at the end of the day because I was too worn out to drive myself home. and my job is not active, I was this worn out from sitting at my computer all day. plus, I was feeling more discomfort. when my bladder was full, it felt like it was pressing on my vaginal cuff, and it would hurt quite a bit internally. I was getting concerned, and then I got low fevers again (100.4-100.9). I was going to call my surgeon's office to see if something was wrong, when a nurse from the ER I had gone to called me. she said that they got my wound culture back, and that it had come back positive for a bacteria that required an IV antibiotic. she said they meant to call earlier, but they got behind on calls and I needed to come back to the ER so I could do the antibiotic as soon as possible. my partner drove me back to the ER that evening and I ended up being admitted. I did two different IV antibiotics, and was diagnosed with vaginal cuff cellulitis and bacteremia. the doctor said this meant that the infection was in my blood but I wasn't septic yet. after I was discharged, I did another week of strong oral antibiotics, went to my doc for a re-check, and then did another two weeks of a different oral antibiotic. I finished the last of my antibiotics a few days ago, and have an appointment next week to make sure I'm good.
I didn't want to share this to scare anyone, I just wanted to share my experience in case it helps someone else. I also wanted to emphasize that if you have endometriosis or adenomyosis or really painful periods for any reason, you probably have developed a really high pain tolerance. I was discounting the pain and discomfort I was feeling due to the infection because it was less pain than when I would have during an endometriosis flare. if you are feeling pain and other symptoms (especially a fever, fatigue, weakness, etc), or something doesn't feel right, get checked out. don't only get checked out if you're in so much pain you're going to throw up/pass out/cry etc. that doesn't have to be the threshold, you deserve better than that, and you can have a serious post-op complication with less pain than that. if you feel like something is off, trust yourself and advocate for yourself. you deserve that, and the stakes could be higher than you realize.
the whole experience was really scary, especially considering that if the ER nurse hadn't called me back when she did I might have just kept going to work and getting worse and might have become septic. I'm grateful now to be doing mostly okay. I still have some pain, and I'm trying to be better about resting and taking care of myself, but I'm doing a lot better and I'm recovering much better. if anyone has any questions, let me know and I'll answer what I can, but if you're reading this and you're feeling like something is off, the best thing you can do is call your doctor and get checked out ASAP. this is your sign.