What a Difference a Day Makes: Julie Kelleher — ‘I can wholeheartedly say I don’t miss my uterus’

Theatre director Julie Kelleher describes the watershed moment of having a hysterectomy — how it brought physical relief, as well as an essential opportunity to reflect

‘They took my cervix, fallopian tubes, uterus — my ovaries remain.’ Picture: Bríd O’Donovan

The day of my hysterectomy marked ‘the before’ and ‘the after’. September 2023, I was 40. For more than three years I had persistent difficulties around my period that were spreading into the rest of the month: Pain, bloating, digestive discomfort, heavier bleeding.

The symptoms weren’t debilitating when I visited the GP in 2022, but they became so.