JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville woman is sharing her experience after she says her severe ovarian cysts took more than a decade to be correctly diagnosed.
Lena Billings said that during those years, she suffered “unbearable pain.”
“Having a twisted ovary means there is no blood supply,” Billings said to describe a part of her medical condition. “My ovary was three times the normal size it was supposed to be, plus a tumor on top. It was brutal.”
For close to two months now, Billings says, life has been good. She has returned to exercising, playing with her five dogs and living the way she wants.
“Finally, having that reality meant that, ‘Oh, there was something wrong.’ It wasn’t just me being dramatic, saying that I am in pain,” Billings said. “There were a lot of issues, and I finally found a health care system that was able to find those answers with me.”
After years of pain and confusion, Billings finally received the answers she had been looking for when she was diagnosed in early January with large ovarian cysts, a twisted ovary and a tumor on her ovary.
“I had unbearable pain on my right side, and something felt like it burst,” Billings said. “Nothing was going to help the pain. I could not move, I could not lay down. I could not sit. I was having a hard time breathing. Nothing was going to help me. I have been in really bad car accidents. I grew up horseback riding. I’ve been bucked off of a horse. This was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced.”
It got so bad, Billings said, that she went to the emergency room and eventually ended up having emergency surgery.
She says she ended up having a hysterectomy that allowed her to keep her left ovary but remove everything else. Billings said it gave her a greater peace of mind.
Billings said she tried explaining what she was experiencing to several other doctors before, but nothing led to a breakthrough.
“I have just been told to deal with it. For so long, I’ve just dealt with it,” she said. “In that process, I lost advocating for myself.”
That breakthrough finally came, Billings said, with Dr. Tony Reed at HCA Florida Memorial Hospital.
Billings said he listened to her concerns, performed the surgery, and now is her OBGYN.
Reed details what can cause these types of cysts and the warning signs.
“It could be anything,” he said. “It could be some hormone changes that have happened. It could be exogenous or indigenous hormones. That kind of thing. Or it could be malignancy. In the pre-menopausal woman, it will probably be something related to pain. But in the post menopausal women, you might have a malignancy lethargy. They say, ‘well I am just not hungry.’ They may feel like worst case -- they have a lot of fluid that is kind of sloshing around in their belly.”
Reed says in many cases, the cysts disappear on their own, which means sometimes no treatment is necessary.
But he says that is not always the circumstance. Critical medical attention can be required, just like in Billings’ case.
“Ladies out there, please, please, once a year just go to your gynecologist,” Reed said. “Just get checked. Early detection is going to be the key, and we really need more of that instead of having to find it in an advanced stage.”
Billings said finally knowing what’s happening in her body has made all the difference.
“Being able to let all of that go and just take some time for myself and be able to heal and process everything that has happened,” Billings said. “Please advocate for yourself. Please do not give up. Please find a doctor that will do the right thing.”