Alright, let's face it.
Many women go into a doctor's office
feeling intimidated, alone and lost.
Women's Healthcare is just not
talked about enough and that
has some serious consequences.
Take fibroids for example.
Millions of women have these generally
non cancerous growths on their uterus,
but for some that turns into
heavy menstrual bleeding or
even a total hysterectomy.
Tonight we introduce you to three women
right here in our community who say
that their stories need to be heard.
I never heard of the term
fibroids until I got pregnant.
They just said, hey, you know,
you have some small fibroids and here's some
information on it and they sent me on my way.
But when I googled it,
of course that's the bad thing to do.
Was Google anything?
They gave me all of this
horrendous information,
miscarriage and all of that.
So instantly I became scared as we
begin on this journey and I gave birth.
My son was £4.15 Oz so let's Fast forward.
I end up having another baby.
He is £4.13 oz.
Again they have a problem with
his low birth weight.
Come to find out, low birth weight
is a part of having fibroids.
And then I started to feel like big bulges
in my stomach so they did an ultrasound.
And the fibroids had grew.
They used to be micro sized.
Now they're 9 centimeters, 7 centimeters,
which is the size of a grapefruit.
Instead of me having four originally,
now I have seven.
Now I have to look into getting a
hysterectomy because that was also my
thought was the only option because
they didn't tell me about other
options besides getting a hysterectomy.
They don't tell you about surgery.
So I ended up getting a hysterectomy and
I wish I had known about a myomectomy.
Part of me think I didn't get
that information because I don't
want to say they didn't care.
But I do want to say that
this world is a go-go world.
There's not as much conversation.
For me,
it was about being discriminated
against because of my weight.
I had heavy periods,
heavy bleeding throughout my life and
my doctors kept saying lose weight,
lose weight, lose weight.
I had trouble conceiving and my doctors
wouldn't go any further. In testing.
They just kept saying lose weight,
lose weight.
It was very frustrating because I
would be experiencing symptoms,
but they weren't taken seriously
because of the weight.
And then finally what?
Happened was I was what I
feel was wrongly sterilized.
I had a ovarian cyst or I was
going to get it medically removed.
And my doctor told me before I
went into surgery that if we
find any instances of cancer,
we're going to give you a hysterectomy.
So. Go to surgery, come out.
And my doctor tells me we had
to do a hysterectomy.
So of course I'm freaked out.
There was no cancer.
What happened was my doctor told me I
had had adhesions from my C-section,
so that's why they did the hysterectomy.
It was very hard because I was
still fairly newly married and my
husband at the time, and I were,
you know, wanting to have a child.
And so that was, it was very hard.
To accept plus. I was just confused if.
I didn't have cancer.
Then why did I have a hysterectomy?
That was just the only thing
that went through my mind.
The doctor never came back
and and said anything.
So there was never a conversation,
no sense of care for me as the patient.
It was just like we did what we had to do.
And deal with it.
And at that time I didn't
even know how to process it.
I didn't know what to do,
so I was dealing with the complications
of trying to heal from the hysterectomy.
There wasn't much. Conversation.
I didn't know how to advocate for myself.
I just kind of.
Tucked it in and just.
Tried to heal the best I could.
I don't think that our stories and
our symptoms are taken seriously.
And I think there's this
misconception that we
tolerate more pain or our
symptoms aren't as severe that
we could be over exaggerating.
And so I definitely feel like
those myths that have been in the
medical community for so long
are things that drive us from
getting adequate care. I think it
says something internally about our worth.
And that we're not worthy of the
same care that other people get and
deserve, when in actuality we are.
I'm a fibroid survivor,
and for maybe 15 ish years I had really,
really heavy periods.
And it was super normalized in my family.
Like it wasn't even a big deal.
I would have periods for eight or nine days,
heavy bleeding, diarrhea,
cystic acne, bloating, back pains.
I just remember going this in
high school wearing double paths.
You're just trying to like exist, you know?
But it does give you a lot of anxiety
over time because you're like,
you get it from a chair,
you're like, did I do something
if you laugh or cough or sneeze?
Like, is it good?
2012, I was like, you know what?
I want a hysterectomy.
I don't wanna have children in this way.
Like, not attached.
And when I went to the doctor,
they didn't give me any test.
They tried to prescribe me
birth control right away.
And then when I said I want hysterectomy,
they were like, well,
your future husband is going to be
very mad that you're sterile and
that could really cause divorce.
And this is the female doctor.
So she was like,
I'm going to have to deny you.
That let me know two things can be true,
that the system is not set up for
patients to really advocate for
themselves because when they do,
all these regulations come into
play and that people are just out
here slanging birth control left
and right and not really looking
at like what the problem is.
And as I started to take the birth control,
the bleeding started and never stopped.
I was bleeding for months,
like consistently, not like on and off.
Like we're talking one month still bleeding,
two months still bleeding.
My mom actually came to visit me.
And I'm bleeding literally
in the produce section.
Like I'm wearing jeans bleeding through
my jeans in Walmart and I start crying.
My mom starts breaking out of crying.
So we end up calling our family friend
who happened to be a nurse at the time.
And the first thing she said is girl,
you have fibroids.
And I was like, what?
She was like, you have fibroids.
And this is what you need to
do to cleanse your body.
And I was like, OK and she was like,
you need to go vegan.
You need to do a very serious vegan cleanse.
They did offer me hysterectomy,
myomectomy, uterine ablation,
nothing, nothing.
Just birth control.
This idea that black women,
black womb holders,
pain is just not as severe.
So if they come in with
challenges or traumas,
it's like not that big of a deal.
And so that training and that
rhetoric totally controls the way
people are seen in the hospital,
especially myself,
I'm the daughter of immigrant parents,
so I've seen how people will
treat people with different
accents or people that don't speak
English as their first language.
So just seeing that like type of treatment.
I felt very alone and very intimidated,
but when she told me about the
cleanse and then in two weeks
my period stopped completely.
And then over the three months I lost £25,
my acne cleared up.
I wasn't bloated anymore and it took
me a while to become comfortable,
and even talking about this,
I was very ashamed,
very embarrassed and hated my body.
I hated it because I
thought it wasn't working.
I do want to say thank you to the
woman that sat down and talked to me.
You were brave and I appreciate you trusting
us here at ABC 10 to tell your story.
And tomorrow we will talk about
what came next for these women
and how they created a community.
Melissa, who you just met,
is the creator of a local
documentary called The Big Histo.
She put out a casting call to highlight
what she calls asylum pandemic.
And again, let this be a reminder to
always check in with your doctor if
you have any questions or concerns and
know that it is OK to get a second.
Opinion.