Part One | Part Two By: Jean Johnson for Fibroids1
Editor’s note: Any treatment undertaken to combat a medical problem has varied results for different individuals. The experience portrayed here is that of Heather Pitt and is different from the experiences of other myomectomy patients. A conversation with your doctor is the best way to determine the appropriate course of treatment for you.
Part One
Come along on the real life journey of Heather Pitt as she undergoes a myomectomy to treat her fibroids. From an evasive diagnosis to a successful and speedy recovery, take a glimpse into one woman’s fibroid removal success story.
Heather Pitt and her husband had planned to spend the weekend up at their family camp. “It’s up on one of the Finger Lakes. We have already pulled the boats, but we have a beautiful house and fall is absolutely gorgeous up there.”.”
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The following is a partial list of common causes of heavy bleeding in women:
Unexplained –no cause can be found in half of all cases.
Contraceptive coil (IUD) – the coil can cause heavier, longer periods.
Injectable contraception (Depo Provera) – can cause heavy or prolonged bleeding.
Pelvic disorders:
Fibroids – these benign (not cancerous) growths in the muscular wall of the uterus are a common cause of heavy bleeding.
Polyps – these benign growths of the lining of the uterus may cause heavy bleeding, but more commonly lead to spotting between or after periods.
Pelvic inflammatory disease – an infection in the reproductive tract which can cause infertility and chronic pain if left untreated.
Endometriosis – a painful condition in which the lining of the uterus grows outside of the uterus.
Endometrial hyperplasia – a thickening of the lining of the uterus, which leads to heavier bleeding.
Endometrial cancer – cancer of the lining of the uterus, causing heavy periods, bleeding between periods and blood-stained vaginal discharge. Rare, but more common in women after menopause.
Blood and hormonal conditions:
Hormone imbalance – can stop ovulation (egg release) leading to build-up of endometrium and heavier periods.
Hypothyroidism – under-active thyroid gland, which can cause heavier periods.
Blood clotting related:
Use of anticoagulant drugs. |
Fate, however, had something else in mind for her. After suffering from heavy bleeding and cramps for a year and a half, her body finally reached its limit. Instead of an autumn weekend in upstate New York, she ended up spending the time recovering from emergency surgery in which a fibroid the size of a baseball was removed from her uterus. The various birth control pills her gynecologist had prescribed to regulate her periods had all failed. Indeed, instead of helping control the bleeding and cramps that had come to mark her life, the latest pills ended up causing her cramps to worsen.
Although Pitt is an athlete, well-versed in pain from previous surgeries related to sports injuries, she felt out of her league when dealing with what she terms “unfamiliar female issues.” The cramps were even so bad one time that I doubled over in pain at a friend’s restaurant,” Pitt said. “I left in tears, which is very much unlike me.
“It was the middle of September that I started my cycle, and I’d gone a full two weeks bleeding. It got to the point that I would look in the mirror, and it didn’t even look like me. I was gray, and my coloring is usually rosy and healthy looking. I was feeling weak. It was obvious to me that something was not right.
“I had extremely bad cramps and had started vomiting. At one point I thought maybe I had a stomach virus. After my husband insisted, I called my doctor. I went in and had an extensive conversation with her. I told her nothing was working and that I was sickly gray,” said Pitt. “She agreed and said that I looked awfully pale, and mentioned that I might be pregnant or have a fibroid. That was the first time I’d heard the word fibroid or even gave thought to pregnancy. She ordered a series of blood tests and sent me in for a sonogram.”
Daily Challenges
“It all started happening a year and a half ago – the heavy bleeding with my menstrual cycles,” said Pitt. “The way my doctor chose to deal with it was to change my birth control meds. I’m 36 now and have been on birth control for 15 years, and with the same doctor. She thought that changing the type of pills would get me regulated.”
As luck would have it, Pitt married a man in October 2005 she describes as wonderful and understanding. “After our wedding my first menstrual cycle lasted 28 days. It was heavy for the first two weeks and then I spotted for another week or so. Then I had about a week free before my menstrual cycle started again,” Pitt recalled. “I went back to see my doctor and said, ‘hey this is messing up my newlywed life. Isn’t there something you can do?’ That’s when she switched me to a different pill.”
It was more of the same throughout the year as physician and patient explored various birth control pills, giving each its allotted time to take full effect. As weeks turned into months, Pitt became a pro in keeping herself covered for emergencies.
“Of course you tended to line up your black, brown and gray colored trousers because you never knew what was going to happen,” Pitt said. “I never stayed home because that’s just not me, but I had stuff stashed everywhere.
“I would bleed a week to two weeks – heavily to the point where you’re wearing a super pad and tampon and changing every two hours. Plus, you’re going to the bathroom more often than that to check, as it was definitely a possibility to bleed through. That did happen many times, and it even got to the point that I’d have to leave work. Thankfully I’m only five minutes away, so I could hop in the car, go home and change, and get right back.
“It did get expensive, because I was buying double of everything to make sure I could take care of myself. I didn’t want to be caught without enough supplies. I have feminine supplies in my office, my car, my gym bag,” Pitt said with her easy laugh. “I have stuff stashed everywhere!”
Blood Tests + Sonogram = Emergency Surgery #1
After Pitt’s gynecologist got the results of the tests, she referred her patient to an oncologist for further evaluation – just in case the mass that showed up on testing was cancerous. “The blood work showed that my hematocrit was 23 and my hemoglobin was 7. Those numbers threw my doctor into a panic, as did the large mass that the sonogram showed in my uterus.”
Pitt became extraordinarily well-versed as a result of her reading, and points out that “Hematocrit is the measure of the proportion of blood volume that is occupied by red blood cells. It is normally between 36 and 48 for women. Hemoglobin transports oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body, where it releases the oxygen. It should be at a measure around 12.
“At first I was supposed to see the oncologist the next day. But then his office called and said that because my numbers were so low, he wanted me admitted to the hospital NOW. I said, ‘How about 5:30 when I get off work?’ But they continued to call, seemingly every five minutes, to tell me to ‘leave my office immediately and get to the hospital.’”
Pitt doesn’t appear to focus on her own feelings, but when pressed on her reaction to this latest news, she admits to some serious fear. “I was petrified. I called my husband in tears and told him he needed to close up his stuff at work and meet me at home. Then I buttoned up my things at work as calmly as possible and rushed home to pack a bag and get into my comfy sweats.”
By 9:30 that night, Pitt, her oncologist, and a surgical team were in the operating room. The numbers were now hematocrit 19 and hemoglobin 3. “He did the procedure vaginally and said he removed a fist-sized blood clot, and he felt confident that night that the issue was resolved. They also ended up giving me four units of blood that night.
“That was the 27th of September and the next morning the oncologist said that they’d cleaned out everything that the internal sonogram showed. He didn’t bother to do another exam because he was so sure he had removed the mass that was causing the problems.”
As it turned out, however, Pitt was not home free at all. The following Tuesday at her follow up visit, which included blood tests and another sonogram, her numbers were dropping again and the mass was still there, and even larger than the previous scan. Join Fibroids1 in the second half of this story when Pitt tells us what happened after the symptoms that had been plaguing her returned almost immediately.
Continued in Part Two
