GARLAND, TEXAS -- Imagine carrying more than 50-extra pounds around your waistline. A 70-year-old Texas woman did it for years.
She thought she was just gaining weight. Turns out, it was a tumor.
Joy Self, of Garland, is now a much slender version of her former self. It was 10 years ago when she first noticed she was putting on weight. Self says her rib cage and bottom of her stomach really hurt.
"Three different doctors thought it was a hernia," says Self.
Her stomach started by getting bigger and year after year she put off going to the doctor because she disliked doctors. When it eventually grew to the size of a very large beach ball, she went to the doctor.
Finally, doctors at Medical City Dallas told her it was a benign ovarian tumor, and it was 56 pounds. Self was shocked.
Just how much is 56 pounds? You could compare it to two cases of water, 24 bottles each.
Doctor Thomas Heffernan, a Medical City Dallas surgeon, carefully removed the tumor.
"Most of it was fluid filled. So, it was really quite a thin walled but enormous cyst full of kind of a viscous fluid. It's the biggest one I've seen in many years," says Dr. Heffernan.
"I'm just glad it's over," says Self. "I feel wonderful now. I really do"
