Recovering from womb cancer surgery

How quickly you recover from surgery for womb cancer will depend on the type of operation you have and the extent of the surgery.

Your nurses will encourage you to start moving around as soon as possible. This helps with your recovery. While you are in bed, it is important to move your legs regularly and do deep-breathing exercises. This helps prevent chest infections and blood clots. A physiotherapist may show you how to do these exercises. Your nurse may also give you daily injections of a blood-thinning drug to reduce the risk of blood clots. If you have had lymph nodes removed from your pelvis, they will encourage you to put your feet up when you are sitting. This helps to reduce leg swelling.

You will have fluids into a vein in your hand or arm. This is called a drip or an intravenous (IV) infusion. Your nurse usually takes this out when you are eating and drinking normally.

Sometimes you may have a tube in your wound or tummy (abdomen) to drain excess fluid into a small drainage bag. The drain is usually removed after a few days.

You will have a tube (catheter) to drain urine from your bladder. It is usually taken out the day after your surgery.

The surgeon closes your wound using clips, stitches or skin glue. Some types of stitches are absorbed by the body and do not need to be removed. If you have clips or stitches that need removed after you go home, a practice nurse at your GP surgery can do this. Your nurse will explain about your wound and how to care for it.

Sometimes people can develop an infection in their wound. Signs of wound infection include:

• heat
• redness
• swelling
• fluid coming from wound (especially if it is thick, brown, green or yellow)
• feeling unwell
• a fever or high temperature.

Tell your nurse or doctor if you get any of these symptoms, even after you go home.

It is common to feel upset after the operation. This is often a reaction to:

• the diagnosis of cancer
• having the operation
• being away from your usual support network.

These feelings may stop after a few days, or you may continue to feel this way. Tell your doctor or specialist nurse if you are not feeling better or if you begin to feel very low. You may need extra help and support.

Some hospitals have local support groups for people who have gynaecological cancers. You may find a support group helpful. Ask your nurse specialist if there is one in your hospital or local area.

You may want to talk about your feelings with an organisation that specialises in womb cancer. You could also join an online support group such as our Online Community. You can chat with other people who have womb cancer. Or you can just read the posts or blogs other people have written.

After a hysterectomy, you may have some vaginal discharge for up to 6 weeks. This is usually a reddish-brown colour. Contact your doctor straight away if the discharge:

• becomes bright red
• is heavy
• smells unpleasant
• contains clots (lumps).

Your doctor or nurse will advise you to shower daily. They will also advise you that for the first 6 weeks after surgery, you should not:

• have penetrative sex
• put anything inside the vagina (such as tampons).

You should also avoid swimming. This will allow the surgical area to heal properly and reduce the risk of infection.

You doctor or nurse will advise you to avoid strenuous physical activity or heavy lifting for about:

• 12 weeks after an abdominal hysterectomy
• 6 weeks after laparoscopic or robotic surgery.

Your physiotherapist or specialist nurse will give you advice about this. Try to do some gentle exercise every day, such as walking. You can slowly increase how much you do. It will help you build up your energy levels and feel better.

Most people do not have any long-term complications after surgery. But having other treatments as well as surgery may increase the risk of problems.

If you had your pelvic lymph nodes removed, there is a risk of developing swelling (lymphoedema) in one or both legs. This is a build-up of lymph fluid in the tissues. Lymphoedema is not common. But if you have radiotherapy as well as surgery, there is more risk.

We want everyone affected by cancer to feel our information is written for them.

We want our information to be as clear as possible. To do this, we try to:

• use plain English
• explain medical words
• use short sentences
• use illustrations to explain text
• structure the information clearly
• make sure important points are clear.

We use gender-inclusive language and talk to our readers as ‘you’ so that everyone feels included. Where clinically necessary we use the terms ‘men’ and ‘women’ or ‘male’ and ‘female’. For example, we do so when talking about parts of the body or mentioning statistics or research about who is affected.

You can read more about how we produce our information here.