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What No One Tells Black Women About Fibroids
Our tumors are usually larger and we’re more likely to be hospitalized. This is a crisis.
I was lying in a white-sheeted hotel bed in Chicago when I realized my fibroids had returned. It had been nearly three years since I’d first experienced these symptoms, but they were unmistakable: an incredibly heavy menstrual cycle that had lasted longer than seven days? Check. Passing clots of blood through my urine? Check. A throbbing in my lower back that wouldn’t subside? Check. Three years after having a robotic myomectomy — an outpatient surgery that removes fibroids from the uterine wall while also preserving fertility — I knew what to expect. Or so I thought.
It would take more than 13 months to be approved for a second myomectomy to remove five new fibroids. In that time, I underwent a battery of diagnostic tests: cervical biopsies, vaginal ultrasounds, two cycles of a medication that would later put me in heart failure, and a gynecologist who continually tried to persuade me to have an IUD inserted instead of removing the fibroids.
By the time I had a second myomectomy last year, I’d shelled out more than $1,500 for co-pays, tests, and medications, developed an iron deficiency, and bled through more panties than I could count. I’d also reached my emotional and mental limits; beyond the search for relief — to once again feel at home in and in control of my body — I was seeking a restoration of dignity. Moving through the world with a purse full of extra pairs of panties and a half-pack of menstrual pads felt like a deep-seated secret that was impossible to share with others. Though most fibroids are benign, the symptoms felt like a burden that would never be lifted. And in Black America, where an estimated 80% of Black people with wombs will develop fibroids and between 20% and 50% of those people will experience symptoms, there is no time to hide behind shame. We’re in a crisis.
A 2003 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that 70% of White people with wombs under the age of 50 will develop fibroids; as mentioned above, 80% of Black people with wombs will develop them; and between 20% and 50% of people who have fibroids experience symptoms. “Because fibroids are, for most women…
