Marsha's Story

Female Speaker 1:  I was tired and I was – I didn’t feel well and I just wanted to feel better.  I was probably late 50s and I could tell, you know, that things weren't normal because I was having bleeding every couple of weeks.

Female Speaker 2:  I noticed that my mom had started – she started feeling really tired and over time just really started withdrawing herself from family activities, social functions, just not really being herself.

Female Speaker 1:  I had been having a lot of bleeding, I had a lot of blood clots, it was very heavy flow and I was so uncomfortable and I was getting very tired and at one point before I had been referred to Dr. Vignali. I had passed out from my condition and I was also anemic.

Female Speaker 2:  We talked about it a lot and she would go to a doctor and I would – she would come home and say, they are not going to do anything.  Then I am like, find another doctor then, find somebody that's going to listen to what your conditions are and take you seriously.

Female Speaker 1:  So I went to Dr. Vignali and he did all his preliminary testing and everything he needed to do and he told me that I probably need to have a hysterectomy, but there were other options that I could pick.

Male Speaker 1:  I, for example, don’t use surgery as a first step because there always have to be the less invasive options that are – will be better for the patient.

Female Speaker 2:  He just basically let her know, you can let things go which isn’t really an option.  You have been there and done that, and that's not really working.  You could have a D&C which you've also done and that's kind of a temporary fix like a Band-Aid or you can do something that's longer lasting and permanent.  And for me for her that's what I wanted, but when we left there and talked about it, she was happy to finally have an answer to her issues.  They were years ongoing.

Male Speaker 1:  We like to have our patient to be involved in their decisions, so we at the point decided that robotic surgery was one of the best options for her because the advantages the robotic surgery can give to the patients compared with other type of surgeries.

Female Speaker 1:  I had never experienced robotic surgery before and I didn’t know anyone who had done it before, so it was a new experience.  I went in on a Tuesday morning at 5:30, my surgery was at 7:30 in the morning and I was back up to the room that afternoon by the time I went to recovery and everything and then I went home the next day.

Male Speaker 1:  If Marsha have a traditional surgery, the option that I see will happen will be an open hysterectomy which will put her on six to eight weeks recovery time instead of two weeks recovery time.  It will increase as much as ten times her pain probably from the surgery as well as the risk of complication after doing hysterectomy will be higher than compared with a robotic surgery.

Female Speaker 2:  Her condition the day after was amazing to me.  She was in and out of bed, she was walking around.  I had went to help her and I was like you don’t really need my help, you're good to go.  And it was phenomenonal, it was so short I was amazed about her recovery.

Female Speaker 1:  I mean just to be able to go home the next day was amazing to me because I had seen other ladies who had had the normal hysterectomy and their recovery time was months.  And I was driving in ten days.

Male Speaker 1:  The point of this kind of surgeries is again is the faster recovery of the patient and the minimum pain so that they have after and it allows them to recover as well there is less blood loss during the surgery and the dynamic of the robotic surgery is a little bit different than the regular straight-stick laparoscopy.  But I think the improvement of the technology is helping the patients, helping the surgeons as well to prefer better procedures.

Female Speaker 2:  I would love to thank Dr. Vignali's office for taking such a great care of my mom and continuing to take care of her and beyond top of her healthcare.

Female Speaker 1:  Before my surgery, I was so tired and sick, I couldn’t attend any of my grandson's sporting events, now I go to cross-country, swimming, baseball.  I just go to everything.

Female Speaker 2:  It has been great having my mom back.  She is my best friend, we are very close.  And to have her be absent from a lot of our family activities especially with her grandsons, it was like a piece of our family was missing.  So to have her back and involved, it’s been wonderful.