Linsey Davis is looking to inspire others by opening up about her health struggles.
On the Tuesday, August 12, episode of Good Morning America, Davis revealed that she will soon be “undergoing a major surgery” to remove her uterine fibroids. “For years, I’ve been plagued by fibroids, and until recently, I rarely talked about them, even as they silently shaped parts of my life,” she shared in a pre-taped package. “Fibroids are non-cancerous tumors that grow in the uterus. About five years ago, I had a surgery to have them removed. But they grew back — more of them and bigger.”
Davis explained that she has experienced “painful menstrual cycles, extreme fatigue, and severe bloating” for years, and would power through the pain both on and off the small screen. “But it did give me pause this past March when the fibroids caused my belly to protrude so much on the [Oscars] red carpet, people on Twitter thought I was pregnant,” she added.
According to the ABC World News Tonight weekend anchor, “Uterine fibroids affect roughly 70 percent of all women by the age of 50, but they are three times more common, and often more severe, in Black women. And they typically go undetected until some kind of discomfort begins.”
Davis noted that stars such as Venus Williams and Lupita Nyong’o speaking out about their fibroid diagnoses inspired her to do the same. “I just feel like this is so important,” she told Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan in the GMA studio. “In [the] 25 years I have been reporting, I have never heard so much feedback already, just in the last 24 hours, from women who have said, ‘I’m so glad that you shared this. I have the same thing. I’m trying to figure out what to do. I’m thinking that this might be what my symptoms are.'”
Davis stated that it’s “problematic to normalize abnormal behavior” when it comes to one’s personal health, and said she had toyed with undergoing a second fibroid removal surgery for “a year plus.”
“Ultimately, I’m taking the most drastic measure, but it’s the only way to really make it final,” Davis — who was filling in for George Stephanopoulos — shared. “And I’m still a few years away from menopause, and that’s the only other option. I would’ve just, kind of, have to wait. And so, I’m praying for the best and looking forward to this chapter to being over, to be honest.”
She continued, “If two people, if three people are going to be better as a result of this, it’s worth it. And it’s something that I really did debate. I didn’t want to make this about me or have this be a different story than what it really is intended to be. But ultimately, I just decided that this would be beneficial for other people.”
Good Morning America, Weekdays, 7a/6c, ABC
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