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Mary Clancey, a 71-year-old woman from Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, finally feels the weight of her world off her back after doctors removed a 140-pound ovarian cyst from her body.
Clancey thought she was overweight because of her penchant for French fries and other starchy foods. Her family doctor teased her about too much snacking at the Pottsville Boscov’s fudge counter where she worked.
Both were wrong. Inside the once-spritely grandmother was a cancerous tumor the size of, well, a whole other person — 140 pounds.
Finally, at her son’s urging one morning last fall when she couldn’t get out of bed, she went to the hospital. Doctors at Lehigh Valley Health Network were aghast at what they discovered.
“It felt like fat. I never would have thought it was a tumour, or a cyst,” she told Lehigh Valley Health Network.
The tumour, which grew over a period of 15 or 16 years, was so large doctors were unable to pull it out of Ms Clancey and had to bring a second table into the operating theatre to roll it onto.
“They opened me up top to bottom and it just rolled out on to the table,” Ms Clancey said.
A further 18kg of excess skin was also removed meaning Ms Clancey lost about 80kg in the span of five hours.
She said at first she felt “empty” but soon adjusted to her new slimmer figure.
“My body didn’t feel right. I guess I was so used to carrying that weight that I felt totally different,” she told the Toronto Sun.
Oncologist Dr Richard Boulay said he had never seen anything like the beach-ball sized mass he removed from Ms Clancey’s stomach before but reassured her that larger tumours “tend to be less aggressive”.
The mass was found to be cancerous but Dr Boulay was able to remove it all during the surgery.
Clancey spent 26 days in recovery before heading home cancer-free.
She has gained about four and a half kilograms since the life-changing surgery.
“Hopefully, I’ll get curvy. I’ll be one hot babe eventually.”
Agencies/Canadajournal
