16 April 2010
By Pratibha Masand
Mumbai, India
It was benign: Savitri Bait used to experience tightness in her belly and some breathlessness It was only when she came to Mumbai to visit her relatives when they commented on the shockingly large size of her belly. They immediately suspected that there was something amiss.
Ten days ago, Savitri was finally brought to J J Hospital in Byculla and subjected to a thorough checkup which revealed that she had a huge benign tumour, weighing almost 8 kilos, in her ovary. The tumour was not only affecting her stomach, but had also caused her uterus to contract and entered her vagina.
Savitri recounted, “Neither my husband nor I really noticed that my belly had grown so big. When I came to Mumbai to meet my relatives, they asked me how it had gotten so huge. I had problems in eating. Even if I ate a little, my stomach would go so tight that I sometimes felt a bit breathless. Even though there wasn’t any pain, we decided to consult a doctor.”
On April 5, the gynaecology team of J J Hospital set themselves to remove Savitri’s cyst – without a cut. “We first performed hysterectomy without cutting open her belly or even making small incisions for a laparoscopic surgery. We simply removed her uterus vaginally. We then put a scope and a camera though her opening and asperated around six litres of liquid which was causing the huge bulge in the cyst, and then removed the cyst itself,” said Dr Ashok Anand, whose team operated on Savitri.
Savitri started walking the very next day and was put on a full diet. She lost around eight kilos after the operation. “I feel so light. I can even breathe freely. There wasn’t any pain before and there is none now. But I feel as if I had been carrying a big load before,” she said.
The gynaecology team in J J Hospital is enthused by the surgery. “It was a good learning experience. Even the patient was in a win–win situation. Even if we had been unable to remove the cyst vaginally, we could have operated with on her by the general method later,” said a third–year resident doctor in the department.
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