- To hear that there's a chance that you might
lose your uterus, is unnerving to say the least.
The first indication that I had fibroids was fatigue.
I got to a point where I was always tired.
And I found myself always sleeping
and not feeling rested.
And so while I had other symptoms before then,
that was the main indicator to me that
something was wrong, you need to figure out what it is.
- What led me to the doctor was the ER,
but I will go back.
About eight months before I ended up in the ER
and then with my new doctor,
I was having super heavy cycles,
I couldn't even function when my cycle was on.
I've always had very heave and sometimes painful periods
but I could normally take an ibuprofen and be cool.
- I've always been anemic and I just attributed that
to genetics and my environment
and it wasn't until late twenties
when I felt like my anemia was impacting my quality of life.
- I found out later that I was very anemic,
to a point where, as it started to get worse
and started to progress, I was always cold
and could never ever get warm.
- I go to the doctor and I'm like, "Hey it's time
"for my pap smear but I have these questions
"because my body is doing things that are even abnormal
"for me and I'm a person with a heavier cycle."
So I told them what was going on and he was like,
"Oh okay, no problem, I'm just going to give you
"some birth control and you should be good."
Well I've heard people that take birth control
that feel better in a couple of months.
I was like, "Okay, so that's gonna be my story."
- My period started to get very heavy.
Definitely a big indicator I think
for a woman anytime your menstrual cycle changes.
- First I tried to manage the symptoms in terms
of my anemia, then I realized that I was losing weight.
I'm a small person to begin with and when I got down
to 105 pounds, I wondered if it was stress
but then I said, "Wait a second, what's happening?"
So I went to my ob/gyn again and I realized that I'd
lost so much blood because of my heavy periods.
And then he ordered immediately a blood transfusion.
So I was a bit nervous about a blood transfusion
so I said what are my options?
And then he recommended iron infusions
and that was a way to build my iron up.
- When I can think back to maybe there was the first change
in my cycle, was about two years before I actually
had my surgery to have them removed.
But again at that time I didn't recognize anything.
That was probably, when I think back, the very first,
could've been the earliest symptom.
The one thing about fibroids is that
they don't know how fast they grow.
They progress differently in every single person.
- Every cycle I'm still having the same exact period.
Not only is it the same for a few months,
it starts to get worse.
The bleeding's heavier, the periods are lasting longer,
the pain is worse.
And I'm like, "Okay, well maybe it's just
"the wrong birth control."
But honestly I didn't even feel like
going back to the doctor, so I just kind of ran with it
until I landed in the ER.
- Over the course of a year, I did every other week
iron infusions and we checked it after a while,
and it was still low.
He said, "You may want to consider options
"to getting your fibroids removed."
And I was really nervous because I didn't want
to go do any kind of invasive surgery.
So there's a procedure I opted for initially
which was MyoSure.
It was an outpatient experience so no down time,
was able to go back to work in two days.
- My doctor, as soon as she went to examine me,
she was able to feel the fibroids.
And she was able to feel that they were pretty sizable.
We initially didn't want to have surgery,
doctors try to avoid that if they don't need to
but my symptoms progressed so much that
not only did I end up having to have surgery
we moved it up.
- The day before I went to the ER I was taking a shower,
and then next thing I know I'm blacking out.
The next day I got up and went into work
and I was still in all this pain but
I'm like, I've been doing this since I've had a period,
I'm not gonna not go to work because of my period.
So I'm sitting at my desk and next thing I know,
I get this pain that was so severe.
I go to the bathroom and as a person with a heavy cycle
to say that I was completely freaked out
when I went to the restroom,
I was like, "OMG, am I hemorrhaging?"
I call the advise nurse and I'm telling her
what my symptoms are and she's like
"You need to go to the ER, you can't even wait for
"a next day appointment, you need to go."
- I was like, "Okay cool.
"Let's see what my next cycle will tell me."
And after that it just got worse
to the point where, I was filling a maxi-pad,
an overnight pad, in an hour.
I was extremely insecure about being anywhere public
during that time.
I just did this procedure, why is it even
worse than it was before?
So that was the point where I decided,
with consultation from the doctor and my family
that I needed to get a myomectomy.
- When she confirmed that I had them,
that was a relief in a way
to know that that's what was wrong.
What did kind of hit me and what got me the most nervous
and scared about them was when
we talked about having surgery.
And anytime they tell you you have to have surgery,
there are risks associated with it.
They're going to do surgery to remove some things
inside and outside your uterus.
There's always a risk that you could lose it.
I cried about it, I thought about it,
I overthought it.
I realized I still had to do it,
in order to at least attempt to keep a healthy uterus
to hopefully be able to have children later.
- I go to the ER, and I'm signing in and
they're asking me what my symptoms are
and again I'm still feeling like a complete idiot
because here I am telling these nurses that
I'm coming to the ER for my period.
I almost felt like I was being judged,
I probably wasn't, it was probably all in my head
but I felt like it.
And the doctor comes in and they take my blood count,
and he was like, "You've lost almost enough blood
"to warrant a blood transfusion."
- They had to build up my iron to get the myomectomy,
so a series of months again, doing the iron infusions.
December 15 of 2011 was when I had my myomectomy surgery.
- Come to find out the doctor that I went to see
about the symptoms eight months earlier,
that gave me the birth control,
he didn't tell me I was anemic.
So I'm severely anemic at that point
and then this happens and of course
that takes my blood levels all the way down.
- Fast forward, had my myomectomy, great,
got married and of course we want to start a family.
And the first thing I did when I went to my doctor
was check to see if I had fibroids, and lo and behold
they came back.
- I think having all of the symptoms before
I was able to recognize certain things that were happening
to my body that made me feel like they were back.
I only found out this past June for sure that they were.
It's pretty common.
I believe it's at least there's a 50% chance
that they can recur.
- We have not discussed any non-surgical options.
It really comes down to which type of surgery I'll need.
And to be honest, even if she were able to put me
on a different birth control or do something like that,
honestly I want this fibroid out.
To say that the last year and a half has been awful,
that's an understatement.
- A few years ago I'd gone through the procedure,
and in less than three years they came back.
I was really nervous when we were thinking about conceiving,
what would happen.
And fortunately for us, we were able to conceive,
and the fibroids and the fetus coexisted.
- Fibroids themselves are fairly common.
Most people just don't know that they have them.
A lot of people go through life with them
and just don't really have symptoms at all.
And that's why they don't know a lot about it,
Not until people have symptoms, 'til they come in
and we found out that something is wrong with them.
- In all my research that I've done on fibroids
I found out that it affects African-American women
more prominently than any other race.
And as I think about my friends, I can count probably
over a dozen of my friends who've either had a myomectomy,
fibroids or something of that nature.
And it's a bit disheartening because you just think about
something's that prevalent, it's just like
you have the myomectomy, you have these other procedures,
but they grow back,
so it's like why are they growing back?
- We do so much.
We have to come in to work and succeed,
we have to be fly outside of work,
we have babies, we take care of homes.
But the thing that we don't always do
is take care of ourselves.
Put your health first, if there is something wrong,
and you haven't been to the doctor
or you're afraid to go because you don't have insurance,
look into other options.
And for women who do have the insurance,
but don't make the time, go make the time.
Because at the end of the day, you only get one body.
And if you're not taking care of that one body, then what?
- I have two lessons.
One is about really doing your own research.
Once you are able to do that and understand
what's happening, you are a better patient
because you know what questions to ask your doctor
and can advocate on behalf of yourself.
The second thing I learned, I think perhaps
the most important was that sharing is caring.
So the idea of me sharing this with my friends
and family members and not keeping it to myself
offered me the opportunity to gain
much more knowledge than I initially had.