Green Bay, Wis. (WFRV) – Stevens Point mom Whitney Sinclair was experiencing symptoms that she thought could be perimenopause.
“About a year ago, last year I started having very random night sweats. I wasn’t having them all the time, but when I was it was really debilitating, really effecting my sleep,” Sinclair recalled.
For Sinclair, this was the first sign that something in her body was off.
“Then I started having some really vague symptoms that I just attributed to being in my 40s, having a couple of kids with c-sections, changes in my pelvis with sensation, changes in lifestyle, changes in the way my body was functioning. I really just thought, ‘Gee, I should’ve taken better care of myself when I was in my 30s,” she said.
Sinclair thought it could be perimenopause, but with a family history of cancer, she decided to get checked out.
When a CT scan revealed a large mass in her uterus, she was referred to Aurora BayCare Medical Center and gynecologic oncologist Dr. Elizabeth Dickson Michelson.
“I knew that until this mass was removed, I was going to continue to have anxiety and wonder what it really was. I work in the medical field, and I know just enough about these things to worry myself, and so when they said, ‘Hey, we can take this out and maybe it’ll help some of these symptoms too,’ I said, ‘Great, let’s do it,'” Sinclair said.
Sinclair was a candidate for a robotic hysterectomy, a less invasive procedure to remove the uterus with less recovery time.
“With the robot, it’s actually a 3-D visual technology so instead of having a traditional 2-D screen that’s there, we actually in our viewer, can see 3-D,” Dr. Dickson Michelson said. “We can get closer to the mass. It’s basically like taking my face and putting it right next to the mass to be able to take it out in a way that we wouldn’t have to necessarily make a big incision to remove it,” she added.
After the robotic hysterectomy came a huge relief: Sinclair’s mass turned out to be non-cancerous fibroids.
She went home the same day, and was even able to have an umbilical hernia repaired during the procedure.
“I had to do so little to get this taken care of once we found the mass. Dr. Dickson’s team took care of it for me. They answered questions I didn’t even know I had,” Sinclair said.
While Sinclair couldn’t have predicted the outcome just one year ago, she’s grateful she listened to her body.
“It’s really easy to say, ‘Is this really something I’m sensing in my body or am I just being anxious?’ It took me a really long time to not be embarrassed about going to my doctor and asking to be aggressive with figuring out what was going on,” said Sinclair.
Aurora BayCare Medical Center is currently performing robotic procedures in urology, cancer care, women’s health, and a variety of general surgery applications. To learn more about healthcare for women at every stage, visit Aurora BayCare’s website.
