From JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association
I felt like a failure because it took me 12 days to feel well enough to run 4 miles after having a fibroid the size of a cantaloupe removed from my uterus.
A gynecologist friend told me that her partner had done this procedure on a woman on a Tuesday, and that Sunday the patient ran a marathon. This was helpful information in terms of understanding the differences between laparoscopic surgery and slicing through the abdominal wall. Plus, it tapped into my competitive impulses. If some other woman could do it, so, surely, could I. It also set me up to believe that I was having the gynecologic equivalent of a root canal.