I had mine removed in 92. I was 36.
Pre cancer diagnosis.
Yes, still have it, done some of my best work with it.
48, but otherwise the same.
TAH Oct 2011. I’m 39
Yup. Though given my mother’s recent diagnosis with ovarian cancer, I’m sorely tempted to get it all ripped out.
Yes, though it’s done me no good.
Ok, sure. Today I met the sixth and seventh women I’ve come across in my (not yet a year old) nursing career who didn’t know if they still have their uterus. Which I find really weird.
I mean, I understand that some people still have them and some people don’t. What I don’t understand is how grown, fully functioning, non-demented, non-crazy women don’t *know *if they’ve had a hysterectomy or not. It just seems kind of a big thing not to know, you know? I understand that not everyone is the biology/medicine nerd I am, but to not know whether or not you’ve had major surgery to remove a fairly significant organ…really?
Anyway, I just wondered if I was the strange one, and perhaps there are lots of women out there who don’t know. Since I have a group of women here who like to click survey buttons, I thought I’d find out! 
(And yes, I meant born women as opposed to transgendered women. I don’t expect a woman born male to have a uterus, but I do expect Doper pedants to call me out for carelessness if I’m not specific!)
Mine left last year (there’s a thread about it here somewhere - I had some health issues that at first were rather mysterious and quite concerning - I had no idea they were gyn related until tests revealed it).
On reading the HysterSisters site in order to get more familiar with what I was in for both surgically and post-event, I had to say I was really shocked by how common hysterectomies are, and how many young women have them.
Oddly enough, within 6 months of my hyst, a good friend and a relative (both close to my age - I was 49 at the time) had them too, though for different (and much more common) reasons.
I voted squirrel because I still have mine but I really, really, really, really wish I didn’t and would like to find a OB?GYN brave enough to remove it. I’m 48.
I have all my factory parts, but given my family history of enormous fibroids, I expect I’ll have it out at some point, like every other woman in my family.
Yes, still have it as well as all the other female plumbing. 
(I’m forty-something.)
On a related topic: I tried to keep my husband informed on what was going on with me, but he’s one of those guys who, when you start talking about lady parts, tends to put his hands over his ears and go: “LALALA I can’t hear you!”
Still, being an English teacher and all, I know he’s familiar with the word ‘hysterectomy’ and what it means.
So imagine my surprise, after my surgery and recovery, when he asks me: “Now, this means you can’t get pregnant, right?”
I just sighed and asked him to try and reach back into the mists of time and think about what his biology teacher in high school told him about how that whole pregnancy thing works …
Are these women firing on all cylinders, mentally? Because when I had my uterus (and ovaries and tube remnants) removed, I was thoroughly informed that this was PERMANENT, that my uterus was not gonna be there any more, I couldn’t have kids, etc., etc. That was in 2001. I’m 54 now.
I had all but forgotten about it with the new “only need your period 4 times a year” cycle my doctor had me on. But since I started dieting in January, my uterus has reminded me of its existence every day.
I know, right? But yes, all of them appear to be mentally intact and stable, with no signs of depression, dementia, confusion or forgetfulness outside the norm for their ages (which range from 43 to 86).
The first time I ran across this was when I was in nursing school, and I told my teacher that my patient must be lying to me or trying to hide something for some reason. Teacher said, no, lots of women just don’t know. I guess she was right!
It’s not just hysterectomies - I’ve got one patient who doesn’t know why she has a 4" surgical scar on her chest. Looks to me like a pacemaker scar, but she doesn’t think she has a pacemaker or ever had a pacemaker, and I can’t see/feel a battery pack, so I’m not sure what to make of it.
In order to not know whether you still have a uterus, you’d have to not know what a uterus is. Could it be because the surgery is called a hysterectomy rather a uterusectomy? “I had hysteria surgery but nobody said anything about a uterus!”
We all know about appendectomy and tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy and all the other ectomies named for the missing parts, but does everyone know that cholecystectomy (sp?) refers to the gall bladder?
Infant heart surgery? Both of the kids I worked with who have down syndrome have scars about that big from their heart surgeries.
As for your original question, 35, all factory installed parts still in issue.
My sister-in-law, who is also my dentist, made fun of me for not knowing which of my teeth had fillings in them. I confess I don’t really pay attention to which tooth they’re working on. I’m just trying to breathe through the horse needle and the drilling noise.
But yes. I know which body parts have been actually removed. (Thyroid, appendix, lymph nodes, sad little torn ACL, one tooth, giant cell tumor. If that last one counts, and not in that order.) I do find it pretty odd that someone would not remember having a hysterectomy. Surgeries suck. It’s not like you don’t notice that it’s happening.
That one, in particular, I think hardly anyone outside medicine knows. I didn’t, before nursing school.
I’m trying to think how I’ve been phrasing my questions. First, I’ve already asked them how many times they were hospitalized, and when, and what for, and they haven’t mentioned a hysterectomy. Then I ask them if they still get their monthly*, and we laugh a little about me asking 70 and 80 year olds that question, but there’s a reason for that…(Note: if you’re an 80 year old woman who is still menstruating, please get that checked out.)
“Have you ever had an operation on your female system*?” I place my hand on my lower abdomen. “Have you had a hysterectomy? Did they take out your uterus?”
I really try to be as colloquial as possible, rephrase things with different words and hope not to come off as patronizing.
I’d certainly welcome any input or rephrasing people think might be more useful.
elfkin477, that’s a good guess about the chest scar (that I hadn’t thought of, actually), but she’s certain it appeared after a hospital stay not that long ago. It also looks fresher than infancy - 3 or 4 years, maybe. Still a bit of pink in spots, not really silvered or white scar yet. But, of course, she can’t recall what the hospitalization was for, exactly… Forget nursing magazines, I need to go re-read Sherlock Holmes to learn how to be a better nurse! :smack:
*Remember, these are elderly women, and of a different culture than I (mostly urban Black, a few Arab Muslim), so I’m fighting a few communication barriers already. But these terms seem widely recognized by my patients.
I have a poor memory and there are definitely parts of my medical history that I’ve forgotten, but surgery is not one of them. I still have my uterus. I’m 39.