Linda Diane Feldt

Eight years ago I had a basketball sized Fibroid embolized. This involved being mildly sedated, radioactive dye being injected through the femoral artery, then a device threaded into my abdomen and injected plastic blocks to the blood supply for the fibroid. A smaller tumor on my left side was also embolized.

Over the next year, the tumor shrank dramatically, about 80% reduction in size. This was a quick and easy procedure, a few days to recover, almost no pain, and a complete cessation of symptoms. Those symptoms were excessive bleeding and flooding, urinary urgency, and of course a large belly.

So here it is almost 9 years later. The right tumor is back, almost the same size. The left one is larger than before, by my estimate. Failure?

Well, not really. A repeat UAE is not an option. Myomectomy (removal of just the fibroids) isn’t either. Too great a risk of lots of bleeding. I’ll need a very large abdominal incision and removal of the uterus, fibroids and all. 9 years ago I wanted to maintain fertility. I wasn’t ready for surgery requiring 4-6 weeks of recovery. The UAE worked immediately and gave me quality of life again.

It seems to be rare for it to totally fail. And why it was OK for almost 8 years and then not is a bit of a mystery. These tumors have mostly grown back in the last year only. First slowly, and now more aggressively. I’m also in peri-menopause, so hormones are weird and up and down. It seemed possibly manageable a few months ago, and then suddenly wasn’t. I didn’t realize they were as bad as before, it took a surgeon to tell me that. I’m also about 50 pounds lighter than I was before. I guess I didn’t take that into account.

Because this type of failure is rare, and the UAE is so easy by comparison, I think it is still worth doing. Given the odds, I would do it again.

If I had been willing to give up all possibilities of pregnancy 10 years ago, a hysterectomy might have been a better choice. But I wasn’t, and even though UAE may make pregnancy difficult or impossible, it certainly still provides better odds than a hysterectomy. But given a simple, easy, quickly resolvable solution with minimal invasion, I would still have tried my luck with the UAE. Far better than this major surgery I now face.

So I continue to be an advocate of UAE as an alternative to hysterectomy.

I am in far better shape today than 10 years ago, as far as being ready and able to deal with major surgery. and being 50 pounds lighter is a major part of that. My cardiovascular health is far better, I’m exercising daily, my iron levels are down butnot too seriously, it is all just better.

And now, I have two months to improve even more, be as strong and healthy as possible before surgery, and deal with what is ahead. It is the right time, the right surgeon, the right procedure, and I’m in the right place. Since it is what is required, I’m looking forward to making this go as smoothly and as well as possible. And I know how to do that.