by Gail Kouame<\/p>\n
About a year ago, I learned that I have uterine fiboids<\/a>, benign growths that are quite common in women my age. A year later, however, they have grown and are starting to cause me some problems. My physician referred me to a gynecologist who, after examining me, determined that I am a good candidate for a laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy, a minimally invasive alternative to a total abdominal hysterectomy. My gynecologist explained some other options and also described the procedure and we agreed that this was my best option.<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s a gal to do upon receiving news like this? Of course, I went straight to my computer and navigated to MedlinePlus.gov<\/a>, NLM\u2019s consumer health information portal. I went to the \u201cHealth Topics\u201d page, clicked on the letter \u201cH\u201d for Hysterectomy<\/a> and found that there was a link to a video of the exact procedure that I will be having!<\/p>\n I asked myself, \u201cDo I really want to watch this?\u201d When doing training sessions about MedlinePlus in the past, I\u2019ve often referred to the surgery videos as the \u201cgross-out factor.\u201d I mean, you are watching an actual surgery! One of my colleagues even said, \u201cYou don\u2019t really want to watch that, do you?\u201d With somewhat morbid curiosity, I clicked on the link<\/a>*. I have to admit, I did have to brace myself for the opening minutes of the video. They show an abdomen with several instruments protruding from it and such. But, once I got past that and settled into it, I was fascinated and learned so much about my upcoming procedure and just what to expect.<\/p>\n The video starts off with the patient (whose confidentiality is protected throughout) prepped and, as I mentioned, instruments and laparoscopes already in place. The physicians performing the surgery and their team are introduced and viewers get a \u201ctour\u201d of the operating room. They also describe the patient\u2019s medical history and why she\u2019s a good candidate for the surgery.<\/p>\n Once the procedure is underway, the surgeons do a great job of explaining just what they are doing and the various instruments. They also give you an \u201cinside tour\u201d of the patient\u2019s anatomy. And that\u2019s another thing \u2013 I learned a lot about my own anatomy. Really, those cartoony pictures you see in middle school sex education classes just don\u2019t quite do the trick! I certainly have a much better idea of what\u2019s what and how all the pieces relate to one another.<\/p>\n While the actual surgery was being filmed, viewers were able to email questions into the physicians in the operating room. Lo and behold, many of their questions were the very ones I would have asked! After watching the one-hour video I feel much better informed about what to expect in terms of the procedure itself and my recovery. I asked my husband to watch it too, since he will be my caregiver at home following the surgery. Guess what? He actually did it, so he is also more knowledgeable about what I will be going through and how my recovery should go. Lastly, I realized that to have read the same amount of information in print would have been overwhelming. As a matter of fact, there is an option to read the transcript of the program and it\u2019s 17 pages long.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always been an advocate for MedlinePlus as a great place to go for health information. After my experience with the surgery video, I\u2019m even more convinced that there\u2019s something there for almost everyone. I can now promote the site with renewed passion – and a personal story to boot. After all, when it’s personal, it’s powerful!<\/p>\n *To view the videos on MedlinePlus, you need to have Flash installed on your computer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Gail Kouame About a year ago, I learned that I have uterine fiboids, benign growths that are quite common in women my age. A year later, however, they have grown and are starting to cause me some problems. My physician referred me to a gynecologist who, after examining me, determined that I am a… Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-archive","format-standard","hentry","category-regional-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22046,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/22046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}