The Fibroid I call Fiona

When I was preg­nant with Squidge I found out I had fibroids. It was casu­ally men­tioned to me dur­ing my 20 week scan.  I was much more inter­ested in the fact that I was hav­ing a girl.  The men­tion of fibroids was sort of a throw away com­ment. I didn’t think any­thing about it until after I had Squidge. The vis­it­ing mid­wife was con­cerned that my uterus wasn’t con­tract­ing. I men­tioned I had fibroids and she was happy that this was the cause and I never saw her again.  Fast for­ward 5 years and I start won­der­ing if my debil­i­tat­ing period pain is some­what related. I have been occa­sion­ally afflicted with such bad pain that I end up bed bound, sweat­ing, shiv­er­ing and unable to move from the pain. It feels like there is some­thing tear­ing inside me when I move. I used to get this a cou­ple of times a year and it was easy to for­get or dis­miss. Well at least it was easy for me.

Since late spring these episodes have been more and more fre­quent. I men­tioned it to Wal and my mom. Said I think my fibroids were act­ing up.  I think that my cur­rent weight loss has high­lighted the prob­lem. Where in the past the fibroid (I’ve taken to call­ing her Fiona or FiFi) was safely hid­den under lay­ers of fat (I’ve lost 10cm around my waist since May) now I can actu­ally feel FiFi. It’s a bit weird. I can poke and prod around my abdomen and feel some­thing hard. One side is squishy, as you would expect from a tummy w/ zero mus­cle tone and the other side is hard.  Last Octo­ber I went to see my GP and dis­cussed FiFi and was referred for an ultra­sound scan. As is my usual I for­got all about book­ing the appoint­ment until Jan­u­ary when my mother was here and she basi­cally forced me to do. The Mon­day before she left we went to the scan and I was informed that FiFi was a bii­i­iig girl.  Doc­tor was amazed at her size and said she was about the size of some­one who was 32 weeks preg­nant. WHAAAAAAAAAAA?!?!  FiFi is at least 14 cm long!  I went back to my GP who wanted me to see a spe­cial­ist. I decided that because I have pri­vate health­care I would find some­one to treat me at my local pri­vate hos­pi­tal The Alexan­dra and set up an appoint­ment for last Monday.

Preg­nancy issues. When I went to see my GP I had told her I had wanted to have another baby but hadn’t had any luck. She kindly informed me that she doubted FiFi was respon­si­ble. My age was prob­a­bly more of a fac­tor, nice.  I men­tioned this to the con­sul­tant on Mon­day and thank­fully (kindly) he dis­agreed. FiFi is so big she’s pretty much tak­ing up all the room in there and it would make it very hard for an egg to implant itself.  Because I am crazy and we would like another baby we have decided to NOT have a hys­terec­tomy. The cur­rent plan is to do some­thing called a uter­ine emboli­sa­tion which will cut off the blood sup­ply caus­ing her to shrink and then go in and remove FiFi.  This will give me the best chance of one; not bleed­ing to death (dis­tinct pos­si­bil­ity as she’s so big) and two; have another baby.  So that’s the plan. I’m booked in for an MRI Scan on Tues­day. The con­sul­tant wants to see exactly what we’re deal­ing with. Is FiFi a sin­gle­ton or are there more in there.  Once I have the MRI done I’ll go in for the emboli­sa­tion, I’m think­ing it’ll be done and dusted in about two weeks.

I’m look­ing for­ward to it. FiFi is caus­ing me all sorts of prob­lems. I can feel her while I sit here typ­ing this, a con­stant pres­sure on my blad­der. Funny how all the weird pains I’ve had for a while are explained once I know how big she is. Because I thought she was con­fined to my pelvic area I never con­nected the pres­sure I was feel­ing below my breast­bone to FiFi.  I’ve been googling fibroids and well folks it’s a pretty grody. Don’t go look­ing around google images if you’ve just eaten!

So folks, do you want to play a game? How much does FiFi weigh?  A few of my friends on Face­book have said she’s about 7lbs (1/2 stone). I’ve even had a friend tell me she was as large as a stone. What do you guys think? Leave your guesses in the com­ments. I’ll think of a fun prize for the per­son that gets clos­est to FiFi’s weight!  HAPPY GUESSING!!