Earlier this year, I had surgery that left me lighter in ways I didn't expect. Lighter physically, yes, but also in spirit. For years, I'd carried around discomforts that I'd brushed off, not wanting to be a difficult patient or be seen as making a big deal out of nothing. It wasn't until my body finally forced me to stop and pay attention that I realised how much I'd been not trusting myself.
But let me start from the beginning.
For anyone eating, I recommend you take your last bite now. As this story, like any good story, starts with gastro. I'm talking about intense gastro where I felt little to no control over any of my orifices. Nights spent deciding whether I would risk trying to lie down in my bed or just sleep slumped over the bathtub, just in case.
It took seven of these events before I could finally accept that there was something wrong. I talked to my GP about it, which kicked off a series of scans. From top to bottom and inside out: colonoscopy, endoscopy, ultrasounds, CT scans. You name it, I had it.
But there was one scan in May 2024 that changed the course of my diagnosis. It was an ultrasound in a dark, square room with the unsettling quality of a science fiction film, where I was the vulnerable subject, unable to decode the strange shadows and shapes on the monitor, relying entirely on someone else's interpretation of my own body.
I was in that room for 40 minutes before the radiologist called in a senior to take a closer look. They ran the probe back and forth across the top left of my abdomen, trading quiet “hmms” and “maybe try from this angle.” My mind flickered with unease, the kind you feel when people are talking about you but not to you. Then, just as suddenly, it was done. The gel was wiped away, I was sent on my way, and no mention was made of why the extra attention was needed.
Whilst most people would have been concerned, all I could think at the time was, I hope they found something.
And they did! But it required another specialist, a urologist this time, and no one could really tell me why.
As it happens, this news arrived just days before I was due to leave for London to work there for six months, a dream I'd carried for years. My doctor told me to at least call the urologist before I went. So I did.
“Do you have trouble peeing?”
“Ummm, not really.”
“Do you have pain with your periods?”
“Ummm, no more than the ordinary, I guess.”
The chat with the urologist was pleasant and reassuring. I got the all clear to travel, but told to see him when I came back.
On reflection, I realise how much I had normalised my symptoms and convinced myself the pains I had weren't worth mentioning to him.
London was everything I hoped for and more. But amidst all the excitement, my body continued to remind me it wasn't quite right. The bloating and discomfort were a constant undercurrent, the kind of thing that made clothes a battlefield. No matter what size I bought, nothing fit or felt comfortable.
I tried everything: cutting carbs, adding protein, lifting more, running more, even going carb-crazy for a week to see if that helped. Nothing worked. Eventually, I stopped the endless war with my wardrobe. I realised it wasn't me failing to fit my clothes — it was the clothes failing to fit me. I staged a brutal cull, but I didn't stop there. I reset how I thought about clothing entirely. No more holding onto the idea that one day I'd fit that top. Instead, I decided to wear what felt good now.
And suddenly this freedom was intoxicating. I could trawl through racks of clothing without that familiar knot of anxiety in my stomach, proudly taking three different sizes to the change room to work out which would fit, and not feel ashamed when one didn't.
When I returned from London, I finally followed up with the urologist, and this was where things started to suddenly move fast.
“How have you never noticed this before?” he said.
“Noticed what?” I responded.
“This GIANT growth inside your uterus.”
The urologist proceeded to turn his screen around, where he showed me a 3D scan of my insides. He gawked at it, slowly turning the image, watching one blob smoosh into another.
“So this is your uterus, and this is your bladder — and check this out,” he continued, turning the image to show my bladder being completely flattened by my uterus. He replayed it back and forth and asked me to record it on my phone while he narrated. He then poked my stomach, highlighting, “Fibroid, not fibroid.”
“You have a large fibroid in your uterus which is a non-cancerous, benign growth of muscle. This is quite common for women, but one that's around 5cm is usually considered big. The estimate on yours is 10cm.”
Finally! Someone was validating what I'd been feeling all these years. It wasn't in my head. There was proof.
Then came the moment I realised this wasn't standard: he picked up his phone and called a gynaecologist directly. The gyno was playing golf but answered.
“I've got a case I think you'll be interested in,” the urologist said.
I heard mumbles between them until a final approval that this case was big enough for him to take on.
And as luck would have it, I was due to go back to London again. But they wanted me in surgery within the week. So this time, I made the sensible choice and stayed.
My fibroid was 15 centimetres long and weighed 0.5kg. For scale, that's the size of a rockmelon.
The surgery itself went smoothly, the pain was minimal, but the physical impact blindsided me. I felt like my abdomen had been replaced with the skeletal integrity of jelly. Slowly I got better, and it wasn't until I attempted a p-bar handstand in the gym that I realised how amazing I felt. I felt stronger, sturdier and more confident than ever before.
But here's the part I didn't expect: I'm actually grateful for what my fibroid forced me to learn. For years, I'd been living in a cycle of mistrust with my body, thinking the discomfort was in my head, that I was doing something wrong, that I needed to “fix” myself. The fibroid made me stop. Made me listen. Made me accept that my body wasn't the enemy — it was my mindset.
It forced me to stop thinking that weight gain was a personal failure. To stop comparing my pain to others and dismissing it as “not that bad.”
It took a rockmelon-sized growth in my uterus to teach me that I deserved comfort, trust, and care. Rest in peace, fibroid. Thanks for the lessons. You were heavy, uncomfortable, and overstayed your welcome. But in your absence, I have never felt more like myself.
This piece was written and presented by Kersherka at the Generation Women event in 2026.