Before then it might crush her lungs and cause her to “suffocate from the inside out,” a mother had a massive 20-pound ovarian cyst removed. Kenya Smith, a real estate agent from Orem, Utah, said she first became aware of a problem in May of last year when she had difficulty using the restroom, lost the ability to sleep on her stomach, and experienced pain after meals.
Kenya said, “I had no notion what the symptoms were.” “I’d never experienced anything like this before, so I was wondering what was happening.
“I speculated that it may be a gastro issue, that it might be a food allergy because my abs didn’t reattach after delivering a kid. In March 2022, she gave birth to her third kid, and after that, her stomach never truly went back down. Six months after she quit nursing, her stomach began to expand.
The 27-year-old went to a number of doctors, but they couldn’t figure out why her tummy was expanding and making her seem pregnant. Before I arranged my own ultrasound and CT scan, I saw five separate specialists: an obstetrician, a pelvic floor specialist, an allergist, a naturalist, and a gastroenterologist.
Kenya would agree to it to avoid upsetting the individuals who inquired about her nonexistent kid. It resembled a pregnant tummy, but since it was soft and squishy, it didn’t feel like one, she said. Compared to when I was nine months pregnant, I was larger.
“I was often mistaken for being pregnant by others. I was definitely questioned more than 50 times about my due date and if I was having a boy or a girl.
I felt guilty that I had to stop telling people I wasn’t pregnant since it would make them feel so awful because if I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed the same thing myself.
She scheduled her own ultrasound and CT scan after waiting for many months for answers about her health. These tests indicated the mother-of-three had an ovarian cyst, which is a fluid-filled sac, on her right ovary. The ovarian cyst was so enormous that it impaled her ribs, leaving her in severe discomfort and tiredness. She endured smoothies for three weeks while the cyst occupied her abdomen’s area.
Kenya had surgery in November to clear the cyst of 10 liters of fluids before the cyst, her right ovary, and her fallopian tube were removed.
Kenya remarked, “That was an operation that saved my life. “If it hadn’t been treated, it would have continued to grow and would have collapsed my lungs, causing me to die from the inside out.
“I was absolutely famished because I couldn’t eat anything since there wasn’t any more place in my abdomen for my stomach to expand,” she said. “For me, it was an emergency to get it out.”
In the last several weeks leading up to my operation, my stomach was expanding at an extremely rapid and concerning pace. That was quite scary.
Kenya claims that she feels “like a new person” after the procedure. “I feel that women often push through problems because we are truly so strong,” she said.
“I believe that sometimes we push through discomfort and symptoms, but I also want to strongly urge women to stand up for themselves, demand their needs be addressed, and strive for their health,” says the author.
According to the NHS, ovarian cyst symptoms can include pelvic pain, pain during sex, difficulty emptying your bowels, a frequent need to urinate, heavy periods, irregular periods, lighter periods than normal, bloating and a swollen tummy, feeling extremely full after only a small amount of food, or difficulty getting pregnant – although fertility is typically unaffected by ovarian cysts.
