A 20-year-old girl gained a new lease on life when doctors discovered tumors on both ovaries, weighing over 100 pounds in total. Doctors believed the tumor could have been growing since she started ovulating. Now, the young woman can finally walk, drive, and simply breathe normally.
Allison felt that doctors dismissed all her concerns at every appointment as complications of being overweight.
Allison Fisher had a protruding, round stomach since the fifth grade. She recalls, “Looking back at pictures from the fifth grade, I noticed something was off. Strangers often asked me if I was pregnant.” Since she was a child, doctors always told her to lose weight, whether she had a cold or an ear infection. So girl avoided going to the doctor when possible, even when she had a year-long period in 2020. “I let myself believe that if I ignored it, it would go away,” Fisher continues, “I was scared. I was just really scared.”
In 2021 after seeing her mom overcome cancer, she realized that she shouldn’t ignore her own health issues anymore. She wanted to be able to look after her mom, not have her mom look after her. By this time, her stomach was “rock hard,” making it difficult to move or stand for more than five minutes. “I felt like I was pregnant with 10 kids,” she explained. “I couldn’t lay on my stomach. It felt like all my organs were being crushed,” Allison opens up. But the girl was scared to see a doctor.
In November 2022, Allison finally saw a doctor when the mass started impacting her ability to breathe.
“I was in extreme pain that could not be fixed with medications,” she recalls this period. Dr. Martin Martino, a gynecologic oncology surgeon at Ascension St. Vincent’s, knew something was wrong when he saw her.
After CT scans revealed a 104-pound tumor on her right ovary and a 12-pound mass on her left ovary, which had also been twisted around itself three times. When she received the results, identifying a massive 50 cm by 50 cm ovarian tumor, she cried tears of happiness.
After Allison woke up from the surgery, her first words were, “Thank you so much; you saved my life!”
Recently, Alison shared that she underwent stomach surgery to reduce her weight. Before seeking medical help, she weighed 499 pounds, but now she has lost half of her weight. This has helped Alison start living a full life. “I feel incredible, and I am looking forward to just living my life finally. I am looking forward to getting a job, and finally driving, and just being a person again”.
Allison also gave advice to anyone afraid to visit doctors, “I want other people to know that if they’re scared of going to the doctors, you know your body best, nobody can tell you otherwise, and you just need to push for answers.”
We are delighted that Alison can finally enjoy life. After all, that’s the most important thing, and the heroine of another article knows it better than anyone. Tied to a wheelchair, she became a wife and mother and consistently smiles in photos.