I Lived with Fibroids Without Knowing: My Journey to Diagnosis, Surgery, and Healing

PART I

It’s March 2022, and I’m counting down the days to my 30th birthday, my Crown birthday. Turning 30 on the 30th felt exciting, symbolic; it was like the perfect way to step into a new decade filled with hope, growth, and new beginnings. I celebrated, I was filled with joy and excitement, unaware that this milestone would soon lead me into a very different kind of journey, one that would have me sitting across from doctors hearing things about my body that made me feel unfamiliar with myself in ways I never expected. So, this experience? It completely caught me off guard. Up until then, I had never dealt with a serious illness or been hospitalized. So, there I was, feeling like my body had suddenly turned on me. I spent my early 30s trying to familiarize myself with my “new” body, trying to make sense of the sudden deficiencies and changes that seemed to appear overnight. Most of the time, it felt like I was constantly being introduced to a version of my body I didn’t recognise. Instead of slowing down to truly understand what was happening, I found myself overwhelmed, in denial, and simply trying to keep up with it all.

For me stepping into my 30s felt like arriving at a chapter of life with an unexpected plot twist already written. Drama, tears, and life lessons I definitely didn’t plan for. I went from planning the perfect birthday celebration to learning medical terms I never thought I’d need to know, trying to navigate fear while still holding onto hope. For me, that plot twist began with a fibroids diagnosis.

The discovery and diagnosis

So… fibroids. Another unexpected turn of hormones that  I didn’t ask for, but one that finally started to make sense of so many things I had spent years normalising in my own body. The silver lining was finally having a name for everything I’d been dealing with since my early twenties; the stubborn acne, the painful periods, the exhaustion masked as being lazy and all the things I’d learned to push through and accept as “normal.”

Now that I think about it, the first time I heard about fibroids was back in 2014, when I had just started working. There was an awareness poster in the women’s bathroom at work, and I remember briefly glancing at it without really understanding what I was looking at. A colleague saw me reading the poster and casually mentioned that her cousin had fibroids and was constantly in pain but refused to have surgery. Honestly, it sounded like a chronic illness of some sort. I didn’t fully grasp what they were or how they developed, and I didn’t think much of it afterward. It felt distant, like something that happened to other people, not something I would ever have to think about, let alone experience myself. 

Fibroids, I have come to understand, are non-cancerous growths that develop in or around the uterus, and they are more common in black women, although no one fully knows why. There are many theories around what may cause Fibroids from hormonal imbalances and chronic stress to vitamin D deficiency, genetics, and even the long-debated discussions around hair relaxers. Some studies suggest there may be a causal link between low vitamin D levels and an increased risk of fibroids, although there still isn’t enough definitive evidence to fully explain the connection or confirm whether supplementation can prevent them. 

I cannot say exactly when I developed fibroids or how long I had been living with them, because I only discovered my “uterus had residents” in March 2022.  Research shows that some women only discover fibroids when they start experiencing fertility challenges, or when symptoms like heavy periods, pain, or pressure on the uterus become hard to ignore. For me, I fell into the category of the symptoms being impossible to ignore. Fibroids are often linked to fertility conversations. The moment you mention them, the assumption is often that you are trying to conceive. If you’re not, which was my case, the conversation can quickly shift to advice about getting pregnant as soon as possible, as a way to alleviate them. At the time, I was blaming myself for not having had kids earlier as if that could have prevented this. I had very little knowledge about Fibroids and as the bible say “my people perish for lack of knowledge” , I was surely perishing bafazi!!. Now that I know better,  I have come to realise that fibroids can develop as early as the late teens or early twenties. I also know women who have had children and only developed fibroids much later in life, in their 40s. Some studies suggest that pregnancy may lower the risk slightly, and that fibroids can be less common in women who have had multiple pregnancies. But this I now know, does not in any way suggest that conception is a remedy for Fibroids, at least not for all of us. 

Back to my story, that month my period showed up differently, very heavy (incoming TMI), with big clots and intense pain. I had no energy and could barely function, mostly wanting to sleep through the day, which I later learned was linked to my very low iron and vitamin D levels at the time. My period lasted about eight days, and unlike my usual cycle where the flow would ease by day five, this time it remained consistently heavy and painful throughout. My birthday dinner was bittersweet, painkillers were barely keeping me together, by the next day I had to cancel my weekend plans and head to the doctor because I just knew something was wrong and could not be ignored. I explained everything I was experiencing….. after hearing me out, the doctor pressed on my stomach, then started asking questions about my age and whether I had children. He then took me to the ultrasound machine and asked me again if I had any children and mentioned that my uterus looked unusually big. He did not  give a conclusive diagnosis, instead referred me to a gynaecologist for further investigation. I turned to Google, bad idea. Dr Google has never liked us shame. I spent the whole night crying because Dr Google had suggested that I was dying (remember my fear about making it to 30? Yeah… in that moment, I was genuinely convinced my time had come. It was time and Dr Google had concluded that my  age of death would indeed be 30).

A week later I got an appointment with the gynae, this was an emotional consultation for me since I was convinced, I was dying. The moment she asked me how I was doing; I broke down in tears. She was very kind and patient, and the consultation honestly felt like a mix of a medical appointment and therapy session. After I explained what brought me there, along with my symptoms and answering questions and the referral, I was taken to another room with an ultrasound machine, where she confirmed that I had fibroids. She explained what fibroids are and told me that there isn’t always a clear cause, adding that up to 8 in 10 women may develop them at some point in their lives. From there, she referred me for an Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan and blood tests to get a clearer picture of the number, size, and location of the fibroids, which would also help determine the type of treatment or surgery needed. The MRI process was very scary, the confined space and the music didn’t help at all, and I spent the entire 20 minutes crying in there (I am cry-baby, I cry when I am happy, scared or angry, I was probably first in line when tears were handed out). When I returned with the MRI scan results, she confirmed that I had four fibroids, with the largest measuring 10cm. The gynae then recommended surgery and explained the different types of surgeries and the best one for me. My tolerance level for pain is probably 1 out of 10, so I immediately made the decision to remove them at my first appointment. At that time, I had very limited knowledge.  All I knew was that I didn’t want to go through the current level of pain every month. My emotions had buried me deep in the sand during the consultation, so much so that  I couldn’t muster up the strength to ask as many questions as I needed to. I took everything that the gynae told me. She also explained that fibroids are likely to return after the surgery and recommended going on birth control to help delay or slow their recurrence. This was also to allow the uterus time to heal for about 1–2 years before considering pregnancy. She suggested the Mirena IUD, and again, I agreed without doing much research into the side effects or alternatives. (Mirena, the evil you have done to me, I will forever speak ill of you). 

Looking back, I can now recognise other symptoms I didn’t think much of at the time. I was gaining so much weight even though I was training about five times a week and eating fairly well. My stomach was noticeably big, I looked like I was in my second trimester. My face was round and puffy, and had severe breakouts, this was not really a red flag for me because I have always had acne since my teen years. Other symptoms that have been reported by women include lower back pain, frequent urination, constipation, pain during sex, fatigue and difficulty falling pregnant.

This post turned out longer than I had planned, so I’ll pause it here. Stay tuned for Part Two, where I’ll share more about the surgery and my recovery journey.