Delphine Rideau
Laparoscopic Hysterectomy Patient Story

Delphine Rideau of Millsboro periodically suffered such sharp pain in her hips and pelvic area that it would stop her in her tracks. The pain coincided with heavy menstrual bleeding.

“The pain was so bad that sometimes I would have to leave work.” Delphine is a teacher at the Head Start program in Georgetown, where she works with two-year-old children. She loves what she does.

“They are at-risk children, and I feel that I am making a difference in their lives,” she says. “I teach them about numbers and colors, do activities with them, and also teach them about hygiene and good manners, like saying please and thank you.” She went to her obstetrician/gynecologist, Vincent B. Killeen, MD, at Bayside Health Association to find out why she had so much pain with her menstrual cycle. He diagnosed her with fibroids and advised her to have a hysterectomy. He said that she was a good candidate for a laparoscopic hysterectomy, the minimally invasive surgery that offers a much shorter recovery time. The outpatient surgery was performed at Beebe Medical Center.

“I was scared because I had heard so many horror stories about hysterectomy,” she says. “But I finally decided to do it because of the pain and all the bleeding. I also had become anemic.”

On Tuesday, March 8, Dr. Killeen and obstetrician/gynecologist Steven D. Berlin, MD, performed the laparoscopic hysterectomy on Delphine, age 41, at Beebe Medical Center. She went home a few hours after surgery and returned to the Head Start facility on Monday, April 4, missing three weeks of work. The only reason she stayed home for as long as she did, she says, is because of the bending and heavy lifting required in the day-care environment. Otherwise, she went home the day of the surgery and was up and around within a few days, though she had to be careful not to lift anything that would put pressure on her abdomen.

“I could not believe how easy it was. Though I did have some discomfort, the pain was gone. I didn’t even have to take pain medicine.”

Delphine says that she was lucky to be able to take advantage of the opportunity to have such an easy hysterectomy.

Today Delphine is back to her busy life. When she’s not teaching, she is running her cleaning business or enjoying life with her husband Eddie and her three children, Michelle, 17, Jasmine, 19, and Bryant 24.