Part One | Part TwoBy: 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.
In the first part of Heather Pitt’s story, she told us about her year-and-a-half-long bout with heavy uterine bleeding, as well as an emergency surgery in September 2006 that was supposed to put an end to the problem. In part two, Pitt brings us full circle as the real problem – a fibroid – was finally discovered and treated.
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Over half of women with fibroids do not have symptoms. Here are some of the symptoms other women commonly experience:
Heavy bleeding with long periods that may involve sudden gushes of blood and the passing of clots.
Anemia as a result of blood loss. Feeling weak, dizzy, and tired.
Painful periods with cramping, bloating, and aching in the lower back, abdomen and thighs.
Pain during sexual intercourse.
Frequent need to urinate, but often passing only a small amount of urine.
Constipation. | |
More Blood Tests + External Sonogram = Surprise FindingOnce back home after the surgery, Pitt did not improve as anticipated. “It was right away that I was doubled up and cramping again. It lasted all night long, but they had put me on some iron pills and said those might cause my stomach to be upset. I ate crackers and drank water to try and get things settled down.”
By the following week, Pitt was back in the oncologist’s office. “More blood tests showed my numbers were dropping again. And they did another sonogram,” she said. The mass was still there and now that all the blood clots had been removed, they could see that the mass was even bigger than the week before. “That’s when the oncologist said that this was absolutely a fibroid and scheduled a second procedure – a myomectomy for the following weekend.
“It was a surprise for the oncologist, but he said that because it was embedded in the wall of the uterus he couldn’t see it when he was performing the initial procedure.”
Surprise or not, within days Pitt was readying herself for another surgery – or at least trying to get cleared for general anesthesia from the cardiologist that was called in on the case at the 11th hour.
“It was when they did the pre-operational tests and EKG the Thursday before, that they found abnormalities. I was asked to be admitted into the hospital the night before my myomectomy to see the cardiologist. The cardiologist came in and asked me about my heart history – any cardiac issues in the past, any family patterns. He decided, though, that the irregularities were due to all the bleeding that was still going on, so he didn’t think there were any issues for me going into the surgery.”
Myomectomy to Remove Fibroid from the Uterus
Pitt explained that while she cleared the cardiac hurdle, her blood transfusion experiences were still not behind her. “We counted up and figured that I received 11 units of blood in two weeks,” she said with her characteristic laugh. “So if I got around six with the first procedure, I must have had five with the myomectomy. It was bad.”
There was so much bleeding associated with Pitt’s fibroid that nothing but getting the benign tumor out of her body would do. So it was back to the operating room, this time for major abdominal surgery.
“I have a 10-inch incision across my belly, because they actually had to tip my uterus out because the fibroid was so high it was blocking one of the fallopian tubes,” she said.
The surgery itself went well, as did Pitt’s recovery. She did so well that she was able to leave the hospital the following day. “Initially it did hurt, and I remember waking up for a minute with very sharp pains in my stomach like I was having cramps all over again. But they gave me a shot and they next time I came to, I was on a morphine drip and the pain was manageable.
“I only stayed one night, though,” Pitt said with some pride in her voice. “I’m in decent shape. I’ve been involved in sports all my life and play volleyball and softball. Also I’ve had other surgeries related to sports injuries, so I know how to take all that in stride. I’ll even be going back to work on Tuesday, only 10 days after the initial surgery, which surprises everyone.”
Home Again with Health – and Humor – Intact
“But I feel fantastic now. Once the procedure was done, my numbers came right back up, and I stopped bleeding,” she said. That’s also when Pitt was able to laugh a bit more readily about some of the things that happened to her during the entire situation.
“Well, yes, it’s true,” said Pitt. “For one thing, if we’d known earlier that it was fibroids, I might have been able to address the problem another way instead of having this huge incision on my belly. And then there was the first hospital stay that admittedly was not my oncologist’s choice. Just about everything you could imagine went wrong there.” Pitt said that none of the physicians she worked with mentioned a uterine fibroid embolization, the minimally invasive approach to treating fibroids. Apparently hers had grown too large and was causing so much bleeding that this was not an option.
“Instead of being admitted directly to my room on an emergency basis the way they said I would be when they told me to leave work and go directly to the hospital, they insisted that I go through the regular admitting process. Not only that, they explained that my room was still being cleaned, so there was no point in trying to rush,” Pitt said, once again laughing. “I told them that something might be seriously wrong with me and that I was told to leave work early and rush right over, but this fact didn’t phase them. My husband and I sat there and waited for two and a half hours!
“A friend of mine who was coming to visit me actually passed us as we were sitting in the waiting room. We called her over. Her visitor pass had my room number on it. She knew more than we did!
“When we finally got up to the floor, a nurse walked in and asked if I was there to visit someone. I was like a big joke. You get to the point where you throw your hands up and laugh, because if you don’t, you’re afraid you might start crying.”
Pitt is a trooper, as is her husband, and they made as light of the hospital inadequacies as they did the enema Pitt had to have before her second surgery. “This beautiful nurse came in and said ‘now we have to give you an enema.’ I thought she was kidding, and that my husband had gotten her to say that as a joke. I kept saying ‘you are kidding, I’ve had surgeries before and I’ve never had to have one of these…,’ but she just shook her head soberly and said, ‘I’m sorry, and this is going to be very unpleasant.’”
Pitt isn’t too shy to share some of the details. “It was a big bag of water. I wasn’t happy even though I tried to go along the best I could since she said if I expelled it too soon, we might have to do a second one. They have to make sure everything is cleaned out and running clear. The goal was to hold it for 15 minutes, and I made it to 12, which thankfully was enough. And it was right at that moment that my mother called. Being the responsible daughter, I answered the phone but only to say, ‘Mom, I gotta go!’ Of course, my husband thought it was hilarious and said he was going to tell everyone that ‘Heather had an enema.’ He’s like a 6-year-old, and wrung every bit of humor he could out of all that happened to me.”
When a woman has a uterine fibroid embolization, she is spared the enema. Women who have their fibroids treated with minimally-invasive techniques also avoid most of the bloating that patients who undergo major abdominal surgery encounter.
“Oh, let me tell you about bloating,” Pitt said. “From the bottom of my rib cage down to my ankles I was bloated three times my normal size. I was a big, waddling person. It was unbelievable how swollen and bloated I was. It lasted a couple days, so I called the office and they said it was typical to be bloated. I said, ‘no, this is the Michelin Man; it’s really bad.
“They told me to lie down and put my feet above my heart and that did help. And then there was my mother making references to certain people and how I looked just like so and so,” said Pitt, laughing. ”Luckily it was a short-lived phase of the procedure, because it’s pretty bad when your slippers don’t fit. Happily I had some sweat pants because there was no way I was fitting into anything else.”
All of that is well behind Pitt now.
“I really do feel great,” she said. “When they released me on Sunday I came home and sat out on the front porch in the sun. I was in pain but it was wonderful – wonderful to finally have an end to all this. And it was wonderful to feel like myself again.”
