I am caring for and living with somebody very close to me who was diagnosed with Stage 3.1 cervical cancer. She has undergone radiotherapy, chemo and brachytherapy therapy in August-October last year.
She is now being advised to have a radical hysterectomy and I just wanted to know if anybody has had this surgery post chemo radiotherapy and could share their experience and any advice in terms of recovery?
Thank you so much, I’ve found this forum so helpful during this journey
Hi there Edith.
Quick question. Is this for recurrence?
Karen
It’s for persistance, sadly it seems the initial treatment hasn’t removed all of the tumour (which was 8cm)
Hi Edith,
There have been a few ladies that I’ve met who have had salvage hysterectomy after their initial treatment (I had it the other way around). It’s actually a really complex procedure because of the radiation damage and I’ve seen it gone badly several times. The more usual treatment is total pelvic exenteration. Was she offered this? It has very good potential for cute. It may be worth talking to the surgeons about this. Pm me if you want to know more.
Karen
I had a radical hysterectomy in November 2020 along with 6 rounds of chemo, 25 radiotherapy and 2 brachytherapy
The hysterectomy was straight forward, recovery took a good couple of months but i got there, i was very tired for months afterwards but elated to here that my CT scan so no trace of residual cancer! The hardest part for me was the instant menopause after the hysterectomy but my consultant was brilliant
