This is my husbands letter to numerous people. It explains our problem very well.

My name is Randy Hall, I'm 46 year old, retired Navy, currently working as a power systems electrician. I'm writing to discuss hysterectomy and the lives it literally destroys. About 2 years ago my wife (Sherry Scott-Hall, age 47) was experiencing pre-menopausal symptoms and decided to see a doctor. They came up with a myriad of things that could be wrong, high iron therefore hemochromatosis to having a mass on her uterus. She found Doctor Myrna Bowden with North Valley Hospital in Whitefish Montana. They discussed doing saliva testing to check Sherry's hormone levels and be able to take a course of action. When the test results came back her levels were quite low and it was decided that she needed to be on Hormone Replacement Therapy. However, Dr. Bowden told that she would not prescribe hormones (ie estrogen) unless she had her female parts removed to reduce risk of cancer. Dr. Bowden also told Sherry that a hysterectomy and following up with hormone replacement would indeed make her feel like a new woman, increased energy, better sex-drive, etc. Quite the opposite happened.

No adverse side effects were ever discussed and it seemed that this surgery was going to be a fix-all. The hysterectomy was the beginning of a Nightmare for the two of us and our family. Sherry was told she had cysts on her ovaries and a mass on her uterus but when we read the pathology report it simply stated that both ovaries and her uterus were 'unremarkable'. We also discovered that Sherry doesn't take well to artificial hormones (that would be any not made within her own body) and is unable to take them in any form. She now suffers from chronic fatigue, insomnia, fibromyalgia, arthritis, nausea, and cluster headaches (which she had never had). Anyone who knows about cluster headaches knows they are by far the most painful headache a person can get. Sherry has completely lost her sex-drive and when we have tried it is too painful for her. Still being in the prime of our lives, this has been a major blow to both of us. The greatest gift of my life was quite literally taken from me for no good reason. The hysterectomy was completely unnecessary and did nothing but rob my wife of any real quality of life and destroyed both our lives as we knew them.

We came across an organization called HERS. This organization provides support and education for women who've had hysterectomies and those that have been told to have them. They have been a wonderful source of information and support for us. Had we known 2 years ago what we know now there is no way we would've agreed to that surgery. All that surgery did was line pockets with money and leave us in shambles. This procedure called hysterectomy is unneeded in about 90 of the cases within the United States and is a multi-billion dollar a year business. Makes doctors rich and leaves literally thousands of women feeling worse than they did before. It's known now that the ovaries and uterus still provide certain important functions well into menopause and beyond. They should have never been taken from my wife. There was nothing wrong with her female parts. Now, in addition to my wife's female castration that may as well perform the same on me.

So, our life has been left quite miserable over all this, and the doctor who performed it just says it's all in her head (typical doctor response according to HERS) and that we need counseling. We had a great sex life before surgery and got along fine and our life was fine. We've attempted to contact lawyers over this but have run into a dead end road there. No attorney in our county wants to take on a doctor and others just believe we have no case. If this isn't' a a case of injustice or malpractice, I don't know what is. We can't get back Sherry's female parts and hence probably never get back her sex drive, her vibrant energy, her wonderful disposition and sense of humor or her zest for living. These have all been taken away through sheer negligence and misinformation.

I lost the most wonderful gift of my life, the gift of expressing love to my wife in the most intimate way. Sherry has lost the life she knew pretty much in it's entirety as it has left her feeling quite poorly, in much pain, as well as being emotionally and mentally down. We deserve some sort of justice if nothing more than to educate other women and men about this procedure that should be illegal unless medically (ie cancer) necessary. Not just because you don' t need the parts anymore! Wrong, they provide a very essential function to a women's chemistry. This should have never happened but it did. My wife had to sign a permission slip for me to get a Vasectomy (much less invasive and destructive than female castration) but I barely got put into the loop on this Hysterectomy. Something is really wrong with that. Hysterectomy is nothing more than female castration and is unneeded in most cases. How many men would agree to Male castration because they might get testicular cancer? What's the difference? Not much from my experience. Destroyed my wife to where she can barely get through each day, which means she doesn't work anymore, therefore loss of income. We have no sex life, and at our age that is unacceptable. She has little to no patience for much of anything these days and very little energy in which to do anything. We could use an extreme home make over about now. We argue more often, and there's general feeling of unrest in our home since her surgery or should I just say 'Castration'.

Hopefully this letter will get someones attention that can bring even higher attention to this very serious matter and get something done about this terrible procedure that ruins lives.

Sincerely

Randall D. Hall