11/12/2025
This entire post is smothered in vulnerability, so if you feel urged to nay-say or be a negative Nancy I invite you to keep scrolling. 🙃
On June 23, I underwent an open abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingectomy (ovaries in tact/remain) to remove a near 5lb, 25cm fibroid. The left photo is the morning we left for surgery and the right is today (11/12).
I now understand how people can say, "You don't know how bad you felt until you feel better" and that is exactly the case now. I was out of breath easily (thinking I was out of shape despite working out 3-4 days per week), none of my clothes fit (except scrubs, thank goodness, with stretchy bands), periods were atrocious at the end, and the bulk symptoms were wild. A couple weeks ago hubby and I ran an unexpected 5 miles (we set out to do 3), the bulk symptoms are gone, my hormones are doing wonderfully, my puppy can jump on and cuddle on my tummy with comfort.
It took years to get to this place: literally moving through the stages of grief to get to the final stage (acceptance)--to be able to admit surgery was needed, to share this publicly to help other women. There was so much shame prior to this: shame that I somehow "let this happen", shame that "my medicine" didn't work, fear of judgment, shame that if I couldn't help myself, how would patients ever do so? Surgery was the absolute last/worst case scenario in my brain (isn't it for most people?) but it was kind of an inevitability from the get-go.
This fibroid was found years ago amidst a fertility work-up. I had zero symptoms (and actually this is the case for majority of fibroid-carrying women). By the time it was found, surgical intervention was going to be necessary but I hid in that denial space for some time thinking I could tolerate the symptoms and I could slow the growth. Hubby and I mutually decided to post-pone surgery at the time as it wasn't urgent (and our surgeon agreed). I DO believe some of the tools I used slowed the growth but that slowing couldn't outwork peri-menopause and declining Progesterone levels, especially in 2024. At the start of 2025, I looked at my hubby and said this had to be the year of intervention. I am SO glad, honestly.
I share this for so many reasons, and perhaps we will deconstruct this further in the days to come.
✅I had no idea I was such an accomplished fibroid-grower. A Blue-Ribbon-Fair-Winner (we joked with Dr. Croak, my surgeon). You could have zero symptoms or you could have lots of symptoms.
✅Because of this lack of symptoms, this is why I feel so passionate about women having hormone testing early on (even if there are no obvious signs). As I look back to my 20s and 30s, I can now understand (having had gobs of hormone testing since fibroid was found) that I DID have signs of hormone imbalances they just weren't the obvious ones. Cycles were uneventful. But anxiety, mood changes, sleep difficulties, and headaches/migraines were signs that I should have listened closer to.
✅Every part of medicine has limitations and that doesn't mean the medicine "failed". It's just being realistic. I knew, even at the time of finding this fibroid, I had never witnessed a patient's fibroid shrink with natural intervention (with exception of a woman that went from peri-menopause into menopause and then had shrinkage).
✅Sometimes in health, you have to take a leap. I was incredibly anxious headed into surgery--we decided by February of 2025 surgery would happen and I sat and stewed until June. Ultimately, it was a leap of faith and trusting in the process: trusting in my surgeon, trusting in the team of people I put together to help with the aftermath, trusting in God that I would be taken care of.
And lo and behold, I was cradled and cared for fervently.
I can't describe how good it feels to be on the other side. And to be able to share this out loud, as I think it's a part of healing, too.
