This is why we need sex ed.

[hannah]

Today I met a woman who believed internal organs fall out after a hysterectomy.

A mother of two, in her mid-thirties, believed that.

I like to think I clarified the issue by telling her that simply doesn't happen, much the way I hope I clarified her fear of getting 'bulky' by assuring her neither of us had the testosterone production necessary to achieve such a look, but man. That was a bewildering exchange.

Comments

[leeshajoy]

We need comprehensive sex education.

[st_aurafina]

Oh, man, the level of disinformation out there is terrifying. She'd had two kids? Oh, that's bad.

[petra]

I'm a bit concerned about long-term bladder issues after my hysterectomy, but under no circumstances was I worried about things falling out because, not to put too fine a point on it, what was once a cervix is now a dead end. Nowhere to fall.

[karalee]

In her VERY SLIGHT defense, I don't remember that ever coming up in sex ed, and I had a pretty comprehensive class. But I think most of us were paying attention to how not to get pregnant. Which isn't usually the reason to have a hysterectomy, although it would certainly take care of that.

That said ... it isn't exactly ... a logical position to hold, unless she came from an area where the quality of medical care is extremely unfortunate and she made some kind of analogy to a fistula. Which is unlikely based on your report here. XD;

[blackmare]

...it didn't occur to her that, if that were the case, there'd be no actual such thing as a hysterectomy because nobody would survive it?

Slightly gory detail

[delicious_irony]

Routinely, hysterectomy also includes salpingectomy and oophorectomy, culminating in the removal of uterus, fallopian tubes, cervix, and ovaries altogether.

The ligaments that keep the whole lady-plumbing-assembly suspended in position in the pelvic cavity would therefore need to be cut for removal, and the upper end of the vaginal tract sutured shut just past the cervix.

Given that the only thing keeping the muscular tube of the vaginal tract positioned just so within the pelvis is its connection with the cervix and uterus, this results in the very common problem of vaginal prolapse post hysterectomy, which could be conceptually blurred into "internal organs fall out".