Woman's 'pregnant' belly turns out to be 57-pound ovarian cyst

The internet collectively freaked out this week over the news that — what a California man thought was a beer belly — was actually a 77-pound cyst. But men aren’t the only ones experiencing this strange phenomenon. In a blog post earlier this year, 28-year-old Keely Favell shared pictures of a 57-pound cyst that she initially thought was either a late-term pregnancy or weight gain.

According to Favell’s blog post, when she saw her belly expand, she was too nervous to go the doctor. “I was…afraid that I would be dismissed as merely being fat,” Favell writes. It wasn’t until she began experiencing blackouts at work that Favell’s mom convinced her to go to the doctor. “Looking at me, anyone would have assumed I was 9 months pregnant,” she writes.

Once in front of medical professionals, Favell was examined for a possible pregnancy — but doctors found something else. “The ultrasound showed I had a large ovarian mass,” Favell writes. “This led to me being referred to a High Risk Obstetrics Consultant who told me that surgery was a must, and I would be cut open from my chest bone all the way down to my pelvic bone; pretty much like an old-fashioned C-Section.”

Favell ultimately went in for surgery in March, though doctors still weren’t able to tell her exactly how big the cyst was — or whether it was dangerous. But after more than four hours of surgery, they were able to successfully remove a 57-pound cyst. Although the 28-year-old didn’t share exactly what type of growth it was, since she said the aftermath was “plain sailing,” it’s possible she was experiencing a mucinous cystadenoma — a cyst that begins on the ovaries, becomes filled with mucuslike liquid, and then continues to grow.

A woman in Alabama this summer shared a similar story in which she had a 50-pound mucinous cystadenoma removed from her ovary. But an ovarian cyst reaching that size is very rare.

For Favell, who couldn’t be reached by Yahoo Lifestyle for comment, the removal of the cyst seems to mean a new lease on life. “The shock on my family’s faces said it all,” she wrote of the surgery’s aftermath. “I was literally half the woman I was going down.”

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

• This man’s ‘beer belly’ turned out to be a 77-pound tumor

• This woman thought she’d gained weight — instead it was a 50-pound ovarian cyst

• Mom of girl with cancer begs parents to vaccinate their children: ‘It’s an act of compassion’

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