Woman Body-Shamed by Doctors Later Diagnosed With a 104-Pound Ovarian Tumor

A 20-year-old woman says she now has a “second chance at life” after surgical removal of a 104-Pound ovarian tumor that held about 46 liters of fluid. Doctors believed the tumor could have been growing since she started ovulating.

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 due to the pandemic.

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!”

Allison had many difficulties during her school years because of her weight. So she had been living life as a recluse. But now she has a lot of plans for the future, “I feel so independent now, I can wear clothes, I can see my feet, I can just exist like a person.” She’s hoping to get weight loss surgery in the next couple of months and then go to college.

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.”

Unfortunately, plus-size individuals face a lot of judgment in all areas of their life. Alin and Maria have faced a huge amount of negative backlash for being a mixed-weight couple. Alin admits he kept a girlfriend a ’secret’ for a year due to the 220 Lbs weight difference. But now the couple openly shares their story on social media to prove that love doesn’t judge.