Episode #30: Inspirational Interview | Post-Hysterectomy Return to High Level Powerlifting Competitions
A hysterectomy is a major surgery that needs time to recover from. Returning to powerlifting after a hysterectomy is safe but a process that needs to be respected and slow in order for the body to heal and rebuild.
Our goal with bringing on some of our clients is to share their unique stories, experiences with barbell training, and how their training has impacted their lives positively despite the negative medical narratives and belief systems surrounding barbell strength training in hopes that it inspires even just one person out there.
In this series of interviews each episode consists of a PRS client sharing their journey of overcoming injuries and illnesses, recovering from surgeries, and navigating changes in their lives and the role that barbell training has played throughout this process for each of them. These are just a handful of our clients that are truly inspiring and motivating and we hope that sharing their stories will inspire you, your patients or clients, or your family to incorporate barbell training into your life or continue barbell training during challenging times.
In this interview, we’ll sit down and speak with PRS client Kim, an M1 lifter in Thailand. Kim is a 45 year old educator who began her powerlifting journey in 2017. She qualified for the Asian Classic Championships in 2020 and her plan to compete abruptly came to a halt when she was told she needed an emergency hysterectomy. Despite the abrupt disruption to her training, Kim was able to overcome the physical and psychological effects that this had on her, rebuild, and come back to compete in the Asian Classic Championships with a stronger mindset and more confidence in her body and training.
We’re sharing Kim’s story to inspire both men and women who feel disarmed by major, planned or unplanned, surgeries or illnesses to trust that, when you take the time and rebuild brick by brick and step by step, you can regain what you lost, and so much more.
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Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:00:43] Welcome back to the Progressive Rehab & Strength Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Alyssa Haveson, clinical coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength, and I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Rori Alter, head clinical coach at Progressive Rehab & Strength. And we're back with another episode in our series of inspirational client interviews. Our goal with bringing on some of our clients is to share their unique stories, experiences with barbell training, and how their training has impacted their lives positively. Despite the negative medical narratives and belief systems surrounding barbell strength training, in hope that it inspires even just one person out there. In this series of interviews. Each episode consists of a PRS client sharing their journey of overcoming injuries and illnesses, recovering from surgeries, and navigating life changes. The role that barbell training has played throughout this process for each of them. This is just a handful of our truly inspiring and motivating clients. We hope that sharing their stories will inspire you, your patients, clients, or your family to incorporate barbell training into your life or continue it during challenging times. In this interview, we'll sit down and speak with PRS client Kim, an M1 lifter in Thailand. Kim is a 45-year-old educator who began her powerlifting journey in 2017.
Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:02:01] She qualified for the Asian Classic Championships in 2020, and her plan to compete abruptly halted when she was told she needed an emergency hysterectomy. Despite the abrupt disruption to her training, Kim overcame the physical and psychological effects that this had on her rebuild and returned to compete in the Asian Classic Championships with a stronger mindset and more confidence in her body in training. We're sharing Kim's story to inspire both men and women who feel disarmed by major planned or unplanned surgeries or illnesses to trust that when you take the time and rebuild brick by brick and step by step, you can regain what you lost and so much more. Well, Kim, thank you for joining us. I don't know which number you are. We have a handful of client interviews, and we're interviewing some of our clients with inspiring and motivated stories. And you have had an incredible year, in my opinion, and a journey from surgery back to competition. But I'm going to let you tell that story. So would you start by telling us about your specific situation?
Kim, PRS Client: [00:03:20] Sure. My name is Kim, and I have been lifting since maybe 2018, but in March of this year, I had an unexpected hysterectomy. I didn't know that I was going to need surgery. So it was shocking and kind of hard to reconcile the fact that I was going to have this major surgery. I was going to have to take all this time off. The whole thing was very upsetting. And after my surgery, I had to take three months off for recovery. And I didn't know, like, what that would be like. I've never taken such a long time off lifting since I started, so I'm so fortunate to have connected with Rori previously, so I was able to get back in touch with her and work with Bre for my recovery, which helped me kind of understand what it's like to get back to lifting after such intense surgery. And so I took those three months off for the surgery recovery and then kind of got back to the barbell with Bre and switched to working with you, Alyssa, and have been training, just trying to build back up, and everything's been going smoothly. I was very fortunate that my recovery was very smooth. I competed at my first international competition in December at Asian Championships, and I mean at the competition. I went nine for nine and got 27 white lights. I smiled the whole time my team members were there. I get to represent Team Thailand because I live in Bangkok, Thailand, and my team members were like. You were smiling every second. And so I had just like the absolute perfect day, really didn't know what to expect and what it would be like. And it was just amazing. So that's kind of my basic story in a nutshell.
Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC, CSCS: [00:04:57] And it's pretty incredible that within a year of having surgery, your first competition back was an international competition, and you had a great meet. And I mean, it just goes to show that, you know, recovery can happen. And I think that some people look at a situation like that, especially before surgery, sometimes you don't know what to expect. And then you have surgery, and it's the day, the week, the month after. And, you know, I don't know if you experience any of this or wonder, what will this look like? Because I wasn't expecting to feel the way I feel coming out of surgery. Did you, you know, earlier on in the process, how were you feeling? Like right after surgery.
Kim, PRS Client: [00:05:47] So right after this particular surgery, I've had only one other surgery before. I had gallbladder surgery, and I wasn't lifting at the time. And I don't really remember a lot about that, but I definitely remember that I was tired for two weeks, and then I was normal, and I never thought about it again. And I was outside. I was doing things like it was over. This surgery was very different. I was also tired for two weeks but needed three months of recovery. And I remember before the surgery, I asked my doctor if I had been squatting 100 kilos, four reps or 100 something, four reps, and I brought in a video. As I said, I live in Thailand, so we don't always have perfect communication. So I brought in a video to show her what I meant, and she looked at the video. She goes, "Oh no, three months minimum, three months." And I was like, okay. And in my head, I thought, okay, in three months, I will be squatting 100 kilos again. Just did not understand. And I remember it was telling a story to a friend last night. I remember the first day back to the barbell, and I had a tiny little barbell that maybe weighed like ten kilos or something. It's like a tiny little thing. I remember putting that on my back the first day and saying, "Oh, this feels like an entirely different body." Like I, it was almost like I didn't remember. I could squat, but everything felt awkward, like, like, brand new again. And that moment was like, I'm going to need to take this slower than I thought. Slower than just getting right back under 100 kilos, but way slower.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:07:13] Yeah. So I'm interested in learning more about the communication discrepancy between you and the doctor. I think I remember when you reached out to me, you're like the doctor said, I can't lift. And I was like, No, no, no, like you can and should. But lifting to a doctor and even to you, I think because you showed the doctor the video of 100 kilos and to you, it was like, when can I do that again? And the doctor was like. You cannot do that again until, or you know, she didn't.
Kim, PRS Client: [00:07:56] She didn't say she was pretty good. She never told me I could never lift again, but she said, I want you to wait three months. Like she was very hard. 12 weeks. Three months.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:08:05] So, for some people, for some people, the doctors are like, you can't lift anything more than like 5lbs for the next 12 weeks, or this is the protocol or, you know, you really shouldn't do that again. You know, with a hysterectomy, it's different than back surgery. I think doctors look at the spine differently than they look at taking out an organ, which is funny because there's no rehab and nothing after you have a baby. They don't. They're like, oh, yeah, just wait six weeks, and then you can go back to doing what you're doing. But then, for a hysterectomy, they're like, no, 12 weeks. And I'm like, "Wait for a second, this doesn't make any sense." So, what was the process actually for you? Talk a little about the process for what your body was experiencing because I think there's also, like, all the hormonal things that go along with it, and your body changes. And you even mentioned, you know, this wasn't the body I had before, and it felt like a different person. So talk to us a little bit about what you expected and what the doctor expected and then like what unfolded.
Kim, PRS Client: [00:09:15] So I was really lucky. I had five. I had my hysterectomy because I had fibroids, so I didn't have cancer, and there wasn't any reason they needed to remove my ovaries. So I was able to keep my ovaries, which means I haven't gone through surgical menopause, and I haven't gone through natural menopause yet. So that's been a huge bonus. I just kind of expected to be back to normal, like I expected to kind of like, have this blip in time, like a little bit how COVID kind of feels like this blip in time, and then suddenly it's back, and you're just doing your normal things again. And it was not like that. I was much more tired and felt awkward like my body didn't move the way I expected it. Bre did a great job helping me, like working up to the barbell and doing body weight. And I felt like. I could do these simple things, but the weight on my back felt scary. And you were talking about how they don't give you any kind of clear guidelines for giving birth. I don't think before I had the surgery, I understood what it means when you take out your uterus. And I had my cervix removed, so they stitch up the top of your insides to keep your insides inside. And so that got me scared about bracing. And I was really worried I wasn't bracing right before I went into the surgery. And I'm so grateful I worked with Bre because she taught me how to brace properly. And I was just really scared that anything that I did, I would end up having a prolapse and have to go back to surgery. And I just the whole thing, the mental and the physical combined, that I remember that first day back being like, "Oh, no, I need to slow this down." So I think that's the main thing that I remember. Yeah. I don't know if that's what you were asking.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:10:59] No, it is. So, talk to us about the transition from this place. Did you ever feel like you would never get back to the level you were at before? Or did you ever feel like some identity shift with this at any point?
Kim, PRS Client: [00:11:24] Definitely. So before my first surgery, I was overweight. I was overweight most of my adult life. Before my first surgery, I weighed something like 200lbs, maybe 90-something kilos, and I used to go to my family doctor, and he'd say, You need to lose weight like yours. He was a great doctor and always would be like, You're such a great person. You need to live like, Please, I don't want you to die like, lose weight, you know? And so I had a lot of moments after this surgery thinking, am I going to go back to the way I was before? If I had three months of doing nothing, I would be tired for a long time because I was doing nothing like it was. There were many naps. I was just worried that, mentally, I would slip back into this way of life. So, yes, I had those moments. And even after I started lifting again, coming back to lifting, it still felt slow. Alyssa will tell you that it still feels slow. I still want to be farther along. But now that I have started working with Alyssa and have been focusing on the process, this is just one day at a time. I understand that concept of like brick by brick.