Good-Bye, Fibroids. Don't Come Back!

It's been a long time since I left you… without a blog to read. Blame it on the writer’s block.

And the fibroids.

Well, maybe not the fibroids anymore. They gone, girl. They gone.

On August 1, every fibroid in my uterus that ruined my quality of life and made me miserable — all 68 of them (!!!) — was evicted from the premises. My OBGYN/surgeon went in there and scooped them all out, stitched me back up, and sent me home after a brief, overnight stay at Tisch Hospital in New York City. Originally, she had recommended a hysterectomy because, apparently, my uterus REALLY likes to make fibroids. But as a 46-year-old woman who’s never been pregnant and had never even tried to get pregnant, I wasn’t quite ready to let the dream die.

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My reasons for never trying were pretty simple — I was too broke for children for 90 percent of my career and I hadn’t met anyone I wanted to comingle DNA with. Sure, I met the occasional dude who said he wanted to put a baby in me, but I had no desire to co-parent with those people. Now, mind you, I had my egg count measured during the apocalypse… I mean, “lockdown” … after getting emotional re-watching season three of Shahs of Sunset where MJ grapples with the fact that she’s well north of 40 and wants a baby. I went to my then-OBGYN and learned my egg count and uterus were something much worse than MJ’s rosy outcome. (Despite her excessive partying and … um … other things, her eggs were pristine and her uterus was “young.”) My prognosis was something along the lines of “you’re old” featuring a few scrappy eggs that are probably pickled in vodka with a sprinkling of dust. But maybe one good egg survived and that’s all you need. And don’t talk to me about donor eggs and IVF. I am not a millioniare. It’s divine intervention or adoption with me, and I’m cool with that. But to give our good Lord a chance to work a miracle, I needed to keep my terrible, fibroid-producing uterus. So, a myomectomy it was!

When I discovered I had fibroids three years ago after I had a period that lasted a month, I was reluctant to try surgery. Mostly because when I was a child I had surgery on my lower jaw to remove a benign tumor and it was a traumatizing, bloody, infection-riddled saga that lasted months. Out of it, I developed a fear of needles that stuck (no pun intended) with me for almost a decade afterward. I did not want surgery. So I tried everything else. Various medications. Diet changes. Birth control. IUDs.

And the fibroids won every time.

Also, I quickly learned nearly EVERY BLACK WOMAN I knew who was over 40 either had fibroids or had fibroid surgery. Like, I have maybe one friend who doesn’t have a uterus trying to kill them. Everyone else? They’re statistics. Now why Black women are more prone to fibroids, no one seems to know but there are theories (*cough, hair relaxers, cough*). And since I had a relaxer from age 14 until I was 22, I’m going to go with it just might be the creamy crack all along.

All my friends said “get the surgery” and yet, I hesitated and tried countless half-measures out of the fear I was slow-walking myself into a hysterectomy.

Then, in the middle of all this, I met my boyfriend in August 2022 at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Las Vegas. Introduced to me by my long-time friend and his then co-worker, we hit it off immediately because we discovered he’s a member of Phi Beta Sigma and I am of Zeta Phi Beta, his sister sorority. I’ve always had a soft spot for Sigmas (duh), as the Sigmas of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville helped me move into almost every dorm room and apartment I stayed in on campus. They also looked out for me way before I even joined Zeta Phi Beta. They were a bit rough around the edges, those Illinois bruhs, but I can bring out the teddy bear in the thuggiest of men. Plus my mom, an exceptionally charming and beautiful member of Zeta Phi Beta, who also felt loved and protected by Sigmas when she was an undergrad at Philander Smith College, would bake them cakes for moving me around. We both pretty much had them wrapped around our fingers, her more than me though, as she was the original and I’m just a copy.

But my boyfriend was a sweetheart, and despite us both thinking this would lead to absolutely nothing (as that was what we were used to while dating over 40), two years later, we’re STILL TOGETHER. And we’re happy but between us there are no children. So more than a year ago, when my third OBGYN (I went through a lot of them on this fibroids journey) suggested I chuck my uterus into the trash, I had to hold back tears. I realized that if I was going to give my three good eggs and raggedy uterus a shot, I needed to evict these fibroids.

Nothing else worked, so surgery was the only option.

My fifth OBGYN and the one who did the surgery also initially recommended a hysterectomy and with her, I did start crying all over the place, distraught. She was the third doctor to recommend it and I was devastated. So even though to have a kid would be divine intervention at this point, to give the universe, Jesus, and my uterus a chance, I had to face my fears and have surgery.

Now, I won’t bore you with a long-ass story about the surgery because there is no long-ass story to tell. I went in, I went under, the doctor scooped the 68 buggers out, stitched me back up, and after a rough initial 4-to-6 hours of trying to walk, I was pretty much fine. I was in bed all day the day after I got out of the hospital but two days later, I was up and walking around and feeling borderline euphoric. The little energy vampires in my abdomen were gone and the aftermath was fine! I feel great! There’s a little discomfort and I’m taking Advil around the clock, but I feel better than I’ve felt IN YEARS.

Pre-surgery, I was a miserable, depressed, anemic, weepy mess. Now I’m a happy, energetic … um … weepy mess … but they’re happy tears now! And my boyfriend has been by my side throughout it all, being so kind, loving, and helpful. And my friends have all shown up and shown out. Showering me with flowers, food, gift baskets, and visits. I feel like the luckiest and most blessed and highly-favored woman in NYC.

So, if you have fibroids and you don’t want them, get the surgery. And you don’t have to lose your uterus if you don’t want to. Just keep insisting on keeping it until the doctors get the point and tailor the best surgery to suit you. Because life after fibroids is so much better. You don’t have to worry about chronic anemia because you bled so much that you ruined both your energy levels and your outfits. And the minute I was on the other side of my surgery — happy, healthy, and fibroid-free — the depression I’d been in for months was lifted and I was finally free.

I was finally me again.

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