My monster belly
Saturday 24th October 2009
The old lady in the supermarket gave me a big smile. 'You can't have long to go,' she said, putting her hand on my rock hard stomach. 'When's it due?' My face flushed. 'Er, I'm not pregnant,' I stammered, scurrying off to the checkout.
It wasn't the first time someone had asked me if I was pregnant. Sympathetic looks, seats given up on buses, knowing smiles from mums in the street. I'd had the lot. Worse, I could understand why.
Back at home, I gazed in the mirror. My round, firm belly stuck out underneath my boobs like a big football.
Since I was a teenager, my stomach had slowly been getting bigger and firmer, and now, at just 5ft2in tall, I weighed 16st. I'd tried all the diets under the sun and even joined a gym, but nothing made the slightest bit of difference. I'd done pregnancy tests too so I knew it wasn't that.
I'd had no choice but to try to accept my body for how it was, massive belly and all. But the truth was, I was miserable. 'I've made your favourite dinner to cheer you up,' my husband Paul, 45, said that night after I'd moaned to him about the old lady. 'Extra-cheesy cauliflower cheese.' 'Great,' I smiled.
But the following morning, my stomach felt more bloated and uncomfortable than ever, plus I kept running to the loo. 'Maybe it's IBS?' Paul suggested a couple of days on when I still felt the same. So I made an appointment to see my doctor. Prodding at my belly, she looked puzzled.
'This isn't fat,' she frowned. 'It's much too hard. Could you be pregnant do you think?' Not again… 'No,' I snapped. She sent me to Antrim Area Hospital for tests. 'It's an ovarian cyst,' the consultant told me a few days on. 'It's a big one, going from your pubic bone to above your belly button. That's why you look pregnant.' Talk about freaky.
'Please, I want it out. Now!' I wailed. The hospital obviously agreed because two months later, I had an operation. Before I was wheeled down to the theatre, I weighed 16st. When I came out, two hours later, I was a whole stone and a half lighter. And the best thing? My pregnant belly had literally disappeared overnight.
'I feel so much better,' I told the doctor. 'I'm not surprised,' he said. 'We cut out two big ovarian cysts. The large one was like a football, and the other was the size of a fist. Together they weighed 22 pounds, that's over a stone and a half.'
I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the photos of the giant, veiny ball that had been taken out during surgery. I'd had a 22lb monster growing inside me. Revolting.
Over the next few weeks, I felt so much better. The cysts had been pushing my internal organs out of place, but now everything could get back to how it should be. No one knows how long the cysts had been growing. And, annoyingly, I might be at risk of having them again.
But all that matters is that for the first time in years, my stomach's flat again. And no one stops me to ask when I'm due any more!