The Heat That Never Leaves
Twelve years after her fibroid surgery, Nurse Kumba Kallay still can't sleep without a fan. The heat came suddenly on the operating table – searing through her body from head to toe – and never left. Her children know the routine now: cold water from the freezer, soaked towels on her back, gentle fanning through endless nights.
"My womb is out," she tells me softly. Though she works as a nurse midwife at the military hospital, her own journey with fibroids caught her by surprise. She sits with me, sharing how it all began after her last daughter Sira turned two.
"The bleeding started suddenly - heavy bleeding with clots, such intense cramping in my belly." She touches her abdomen as she speaks. "I thought maybe my womb just hadn't gone back to normal after childbirth."
As her tummy grew larger, the doctors kept questioning her: "Do you have children?" "Yes," she would answer, "I have four."
When they finally did the scan, she saw it clearly - fibroids had spread through her womb like roots. But by then, shame had already pushed her into hiding.
"I just stopped going to work," Kumba says. "My tummy was so big, I only wore loose gowns to the market. People would point and say 'Oh Kumba, you're pregnant again?' I'd tell them 'I'm not pregnant,' but how could I explain? My problem was my problem."
Money was tight. She used her salary, took loans. "My stepbrother in America only sent money when other family members called him saying 'your sister is dying.'" She shakes her head. "After the surgery, everyone just said 'Sorry, we never knew.'"
But the real struggle began on the operating table. "The moment they cut into my womb, this heat started," she recalls, her eyes widening. "Heat everywhere - from my head down to my toes. I kept begging them to take off my wrapper in the recovery room. The heat was too much."
The hardest part? No one warned her about any of this. "Nobody told me 'after surgery, this is how your life will be,'" she says, frustration clear in her voice. "They only explained later - 'oh, it's because your estrogen and progesterone aren't working anymore, because your menstruation has stopped.'"
Today, Kumba channels her experience into protecting her daughters, especially her fifteen-year-old. "I tell them straight - you've seen what I've gone through. If you ever have heavy bleeding during your period, tell me immediately. We'll go to the doctor together. I don't want you to become victims like me."
She leans forward, her voice urgent as she explains why she shares her story: "Women need to know. This silence around our health problems - it's dangerous. We must speak up. Even if it's difficult, we must warn others so they don't walk this same hard path."