'I felt like I was pregnant with 10 kids': Florida woman, 20, gets 104-lb ovarian cyst surgically removed
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA: A Florida woman had to undergo surgery to remove a 104-lb, exercise ball-sized ovarian cyst that was growing inside her abdomen. Jacksonville resident Allison Fisher said that the lump was so big she could not bend over or see her feet, and felt like she was pregnant with 10 children.
Fisher frequently complained of bloating and stomach ache, and once her period lasted a full year. Yet the Florida-native kept putting off seeing a doctor out of anxiety and the hope that the problem would simply "go away." She was motivated to get the bulge examined after her mother was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of 2021. When she went for a check up, the doctors discovered that she had a massive ovarian cyst and had to undergo surgery to remove it.
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'I felt like I was pregnant with 10 kids'
The cyst was 20 inches by 20 inches, the size of a huge watermelon or an exercise ball, and it weighed 104 pounds, nearly 20% of her body weight. Describing her stomach before getting surgery, Fisher told News4Jax, "I let myself believe that if I ignored it, it would go away. I was scared, I was just really scared. I felt like I was pregnant with 10 kids. I couldn't lay on my stomach, it felt like all of my organs were being crushed. It was also the height of the pandemic and I was terrified to go out. I didn't want to try and find doctors. I also didn't have health insurance, so I just ignored my issues completely. [But] after watching my mother's battle and whjat she went through I realized that I should not be putting off my issues in the way that I was."
'I feel so much lighter'
Fisher said that having the tumor removed saved her life and made her feel "like a person" again. She said, "Well, for starters, I can see my feet again, and I haven't been able to do that in years. I feel so much lighter. I feel like a person, I can wear clothes, I can do things that normal people can do."
Fisher stated that she has started taking driving lessons. In order to help herself with her weight, she is also working towards undergoing a gastric bypass surgery. She weighed 500lbs before the tumor was removed and now weighed 400lbs. She aims to be between 150 and 200lbs. Doctors reportedly said that she could still have children as they successfully saved her left ovary during surgery.
Allison Fisher put off seeing doctors
When Fisher was 14, she started to worry that something was not right, but her physicians advised her to lose weight and even had her join weight watchers. When she was 17, her period lasted for a year, halted, and then came back abnormally heavily. Her periods were never on schedule. She started having stomach pains in 2020, yet, she delayed seeing a doctor out of worry that they would only advise her to lose weight and because she did not have health insurance.
In 2021, her mother Eileen was diagnosed with cancer. Fisher said that she chose to go to the doctor after witnessing everything her mother had to endure. Her tumor was taken out using a minimally invasive robotic approach and removed piece by piece after a surgeon made a small incision.