July is “Fibroid Awareness Month” and I was wanted to share my story to help bring awareness and encouragement:
Even though Homecoming (GHOE) for NC A&T was canceled in 2020 due to Covid, I still wanted to come together with a few of my family members to eat what would have been our traditional GHOE dinner. GHOE 2020 was scheduled for October 31st and two days before our GHOE dinner, I started feeling a little off. I was short winded, but it didn’t feel like an asthmatic short windedness, so I thought that it may have been some anxiety mixed in as well. The next day I was having the same symptoms on and off. I noticed that every time I climbed the top of steps, I was out of breath like I was trying to outrun Sha’Carri Richardson. So the day of GHOE dinner I went to go get a breathing treatment and be on my merry way. However, what I thought would be “my merry way” turned into an ambulance ride to the hospital.
I initially went to urgent care, and due to all of the COVID precautions that was in place, I had to speak to the doctor by FaceTime so she could assess my medical needs. When I told her my symptoms, she confirmed that it didn’t sound 100% like asthma, and due to Covid, they didn’t have breathing treatments at urgent care, so she recommended that I go to a stand-alone emergency room to hopefully avoid the crowd that would have came with a hospital emergency room. When I arrived at the stand-alone emergency room there was no wait thank God. They drew blood and when they received the results, they informed me that my hemoglobin was at a 6 and that it was supposed to be between a 12-15. Hemoglobin contains iron, is located in the red blood cells, and carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. So basically, I was out of breath because my hemoglobin was low, which meant that I had loss a significant amount blood. In retrospect, there was signs that my iron was low, but I did not know they were signs until afterwards. The palm of my hands were flaky/dry and my lips were peeling (the dry skin was hard). Besides that there were about 2 times when I was craving crushed ice, but it wasn’t frequent, so I didn’t think anything of it. Another sign of low iron is when the inside of your lips are more of a white-ish color than the pink-ish color.
They ran a few tests to see where I may have lost blood from. They then told me that I needed a blood transfusion (your hemoglobin has to be a 7 in order for you to have a blood transfusion) and that I was going to be transported to the hospital. At this time my phone was dead. I had my charger, but no wall piece to plug it in to (and supposedly none of the staff at the stand-alone emergency room did either. I’m like how none of y’all not have a wall piece?). I was trying to call my cousin, who is a second mom to me, but for some reason her cell phone wouldn’t allow the call from the room I was in to go through none of the times that I tried to get through (at least 10 times). I started to get frustrated, so I took a step back and prayed, and I tried to remember her house phone number. After a few times of trying, her house number finally came to me and I was able to get in contact with her. Her, her daughter, and grandkids were all there eating GHOE dinner (I’m like how are y’all in there eating dinner without me and I’m sitting up in my room like Brandy, but in the emergency room).
The medical staff informed me that before I could be transported that I would have to take a Covid test. This was my first Covid test and this was still the test that they had to stick the swab all the way up your nostril, so I had to brace myself! I was transported to the hospital and was taken straight to a room. When I got there, the news went from crazy to crazier. I had to take another Covid test. I was like “They gave me a Covid test before I came here, so that I COULD come here”. However, the nurse still gave me one. However, that wasn’t the “crazy to crazier part”, this is: I can’t remember what the doctor told me first, but I was told that I had a mass in my stomach area and that they also saw blood clots in both of my lungs.
I know some tears streamed down my face, but my mind quickly went to “God’s got you, God loves you”, which helped me to pull it together. Trusting God came easy for me. The catalyst that built my faith was some years back in my time of really seeking God through worshipping and reading the Word, God healed and delivered me from some painful things, some things that I had wasn’t even thinking about, and things that I never thought I would be healed from. This as well as things that He’s blessed me with throughout the years has helped to build my faith.
If I’m not mistaken, they may have ran more test. Their findings were that I had 2 uterine fibroids, one was pushing up against my right kidney causing it to be slightly enlarge, and the other was sitting on a vein in my pelvic area, which caused a blood clot that broke off and went through my body and into my lungs.
I’ve heard of women speaking about their fibroids, but I didn’t know the fullness of what they were. Plus, what I’ve heard other women describe, I didn’t have the same symptoms. I’ve heard other women say how their periods would last for close to 2 weeks, was very heavy, and very painful. My flow over the last year changed a little, but it was nothing like how other women described (I thought it changed because I was getting older) and when I did experience pain (which is rare), it was always light. All in all, my hemoglobin was low due to the amount of blood that I was losing wasn’t being restored fast enough.
I ended up staying in the hospital for 4 days, and since my hospitalization was in the midst of Covid, I could only have one visitor. I had two blood transfusions and two iron transfusions. Before I was released from the hospital the doctor that was assigned to me set up a health plan which included a pulmonologist (lung doctor), abdomen myomectomy surgery to remove the fibroids (this surgery is ranked #3 in all surgeries as the most painful surgery and I believe it), taking a monthly injection to stop my cycle, weekly iron transfusions, iron pills, and blood thinners (for the blood clots). On February 9th, I had my surgery and was released the next day. The surgery itself was successful, however, I had to go back that night to get blood transfusion and stayed for a few days (that’s another story for another day, however, this doesn’t happen to everyone, but can happen depend on your blood lost during any type of surgery).
Here are my takeaways:
-God keeps you even when you don’t know that you are being kept. Some more of my takeaways points to this as well. I had no idea that I had blood clots in both lungs. Prior to this I had been working out/walking daily. I’m not for sure if this was God’s way of protecting me from whatever could have potentially occurred, but about 2 weeks before I went to the hospital, I stepped off of a curb wrong and had really bad pain in my lower back and down my leg (this happened to be the side where the fibroid was sitting in my pelvic area on my vein). Due to the pain, I did not exercise for those two weeks leading up to me being admitted to the hospital. As odd as it may seem, pain can be used for a purpose.
-I resigned from my job in May/left in June 2020 ( a few months before I found out that I had fibroids). My health insurance no longer covered me after August, but I felt the need to go ahead and get health insurance when I started feeling a “little off”, my health insurance kicked in the day before I went to the hospital.
-Therapy is necessary. Since Spring of last year, I kept experiencing losses all across the board. I thought I was okay and some things I didn’t realized affected me, until I realized that I was NOT okay. Anytime we experience any type of an abuse, loss, or major life change, therapy helps us in processing the situation. These experiences may have more of an effect on us than we realize, and it’s easier to work through getting 1 thing off of our plate at a time, than trying to get 8 things off of our plate at one time, but no matter how many things are on our plates we still need to work through it. God has used therapy to bring clarity in certain areas and has revealed some things to me through some of my journaling exercises.
-After I followed up with my doctor the day after my surgery, I was informed that they only saw one fibroid (the one that was pressing against my kidney). I don’t know what happened to the other one but it could have dissolved. The one fibroid that they did find was benign (not cancerous).
-After having some x-rays/CT scan done in January, I was informed that I no longer have blood clots in my lungs, they dissolved. Even though I probably should have known this, I never knew how dangerous blood clots could be, therefore I wasn’t as worried as I probably would have been if I would have known. However, there really was no need to worry because they eventually went away. It’s the same way with life altogether. God tells us not to worry because whatever we go through, it’s never too big for Him to dissolve, He is capable and willing. All we need to do is take our blood thinners (trust God, speak life, speak the Word, and choose to believe when things seem hopeless, no matter how long it takes) and it will eventually go away.
-You can still have a winning season in the midst of a storm. I found out that I had fibroids in the beginning of November. I took November to the beginning of December off from The Legacy Foundation. Most of my high school seniors were accepted into college and completed their financial aid before November. After my surgery in February I took 8 weeks off. At the time, it was just me working with the girls, and I still checked in with my them when needed. After I returned from surgery, I was able to hop right back in to assist with accepting financial aid offers, housing, orientation, health insurance, and any other information that would help them to successfully enroll. We have a total of 3 Honors Program Offers, 28 College Acceptance letters, and $95,000 in scholarship offers.
-Some health tips for those that may have fibroids: Eat healthy (I need to eat better myself), take iron medicine, speak life, and as always, stay encouraged.
misscriss30's Blog 