The Fibroid From Hell

My reservations about revealing personal medical issues have been outweighed by the fact that sharing my experience might help someone else in a similar situation. A little bit of knowledge might save someone else going through the kind of pain and disability that I found myself dealing with three years ago. That, and there is a symbolic component to this that is entirely in keeping with the topics I write about here.

Still, fair warning is called for. This is not one of my usual posts. If talk of surgery and other medical procedures disturbs you, you might want to stop reading here. However, if you have uterine fibroids, suspect that you do, or know someone who does, the following might save you or someone you love a considerable amount of difficulty. The usual disclaimers apply: This is my experience only and is in no way intended as medical advice, so please don’t use this as a substitute for competent, qualified medical treatment or consultation.

The last few years have been a long and difficult journey for many reasons, and particularly in regards to my health. I’ve mentioned before about being on light duty with the fire department – what I didn’t specify was why. It had nothing to do with firefighting. (The incident when my leg went through the floor of the burning mobile home happened several years before I started having numbness and pain in my legs.) In the summer of 2004, I found myself in the midst of a medical mystery. It took six months to figure out what was wrong.

It was a hot August day and I was on my way to Kingman to finish up my training with a new ambulance company when I started having symptoms. It was a long drive, over a hundred miles, and I was only two-thirds of the way there when I started feeling nauseous and having abdominal pain, lower right quadrant, and sharp pain radiating into my legs and lower back. Not good. I called in and turned around to head back to Flagstaff. My doctor worked me in and thus started months of tests, endless rounds of doctor appointments, and gradually worsening symptoms.

First, the physical exams, CAT scans, and sonograms. Appendicitis was ruled out; no hernia, no masses, nothing unusual was visible or palpable anywhere. But the pain continued to worsen, alternating between a dull ache and stabbing pains in my abdomen and groin that would radiate down my legs, sometimes all the way to my feet. By October, I was no closer to an answer. I was still keeping up with my coursework in my Fire Science degree program, and I even managed to get through my state fire investigation training, but I did it in pain and the knowledge that if things continued the way they were going, I was in deep trouble. Just sitting in class or down at the fire station doing paperwork was about all I could do, and driving and walking were getting increasingly difficult.

The doctors were evenly divided between, “We can’t find what is causing it, but we know there is something wrong. We’ll keep looking until we find it,” and “There isn’t anything we can find. Come back in [anywhere from one to three] months if you’re still having problems.”

Then, in November, I was walking down the hall at school and I almost fell. My right foot was dropping and I didn’t have control over it. My primary care physician ordered an MRI and told me that she wanted to rule out a tumor in my lower spine. The unspoken words hung in the room, “What if you don’t rule it out…”

Thankfully, the MRI came back negative. My doctor put me on an opiate for the pain and scheduled an exploratory laparoscopy for early December. The laparoscopy didn’t reveal much, but the surgeon did take care of some adhesions and said that I definitely had uterine fibroids (a fairly common type of benign tumor), but nothing that looked too bad. Lacking anything more to go on, my doctors got together and recommended that I have a hysterectomy for the fibroids, anyway.

Good thing! In January 2005, I had the hysterectomy. I was still groggy and in recovery when the surgeon came in and said that along with my uterus he had removed a fibroid the size of a tennis ball that had been growing in my cervix. When I saw my primary care physician, she exclaimed, “You were walking around giving birth for six months!” Yeah, giving birth to the Fibroid From Hell. I felt like an extra in an “Alien” movie.

Deliverance! Or so I thought. I felt better almost immediately. I was out of the hospital earlier than anticipated and recovered extremely quickly. There was just this lingering pain down my legs…

As it turns out, the femoral nerves had been compressed for months, wedged between the pelvic bone and the growing fibroid. That accounted for the pain. I have been dealing with the resulting nerve damage ever since. Physical therapy and medications helped, but it has been a long and difficult process, that only now is reaching resolution. I sincerely hope that this post helps someone else facing the same situation find an answer sooner than I did.

The symbolic thing out of all this? In nearly three years of dealing with the Fibroid from Hell and its aftermath, I’ve lost a lot – my uterus; my unthinking expectation of continued good health; an advancing career as an EMT, firefighter, and officer; my marriage. In exchange, I ended up giving birth to a renewed sense of self.

I’ve learned that I can persist despite pain and uncertainty, and that I can take care of myself emotionally under very difficult circumstances. I can let go of the illusion of invulnerability and physical robustness, all the while doggedly fighting to regain my health despite uncertain odds and outcome…all valuable lessons to take with me into the second half of life.