Warning: Graphic images
A woman in her 70s who had worried about her bulging stomach had spent years managing her diet and exercise in an attempt to keep her weight down.
But it wasn’t until and MRI for a blood clot in her leg that doctors realised Mary Clancy’s diet had nothing to do with her belly.
‘They came back and she said to me there is a huge mass in your stomach area,’ Mary told WFMZ.
Doctors immediately began arranging for Mary to have surgery to remove the mass.
Dr Richard Boulay, who led the surgical team, says:
‘The first thing we had to do is make sure that when the mass was lifted up that the clot that it was holding back didn’t break up and go to her lungs because that is fatal.’
After five hours in surgery, the tumour was removed and weighed a massive 65 kg.
‘That thing rolled out and I looked like an empty Easter egg,’ Mary says.
Within a matter of hours Mary had lost half her body weight and she admits that while she’s happy, she find it strange in her new body.
She also is frustrated with the culture that told her that her weight gain was her own fault:
‘All television does is tell us that we’re fat. Do you every notice all of the commercials, how to lose weight, buy this, buy that, buy an exercise machine and everybody is taking special diets and maybe we are not all fat maybe there is something else there, you know?’
Dr Boulay says that regular visits with a gynaecologist are key to preventing masses like Mary’s from getting out of control.