When I learned that I needed an open abdominal surgery to remove a melon-sized fibroid tumor from my uterus, I was devastated. It wasn't the potential impact this might have on my fertility that distressed me. It was the scar.

The surgery to remove this benign, but huge, mass would be akin to having a C-section. As a single, 32-year-old woman, I lamented the fact that the next man to see me naked would not be one who'd vowed to love me in sickness and in health, or even a sweet boyfriend who'd read to me in bed while I recovered. I hated the thought of looking like I'd had a baby when what I'd actually had was a tumor.

I had always taken great care to avoid injury, orchestrating a life that left my fair skin unmarred by any permanent desecration. Sure, I'd had minor scrapes and bruises in my life. Blemishes. Tan lines. But these unwelcome marks were temporary. I viewed the impending scar at my bikini line like a crack in fine bone china, an undesirable imperfection that would make me look and feel like damaged goods.

After a lifetime of hating my body, I'd only just started to feel comfortable in my own skin. In the last year, I'd lost 40 pounds, slowly transforming myself from XL to XS. When I looked in the mirror, I felt attractive and feminine for the first time in my life. Then, one night as I lay in bed, I felt the protrusion in my abdomen — a firm mass bulging from one hip bone to the other.

Upon my diagnosis, I worried about the invasiveness of the surgery and the long weeks of recovery ahead. I'd never been under the knife before and it terrified me to think of the surgeon's blade slicing me open and handling my internal organs. Under anesthesia, they would stick a tube down my throat and insert a catheter. It all seemed so barbaric and violating. The fact that this was a routine procedure, and one that would heal my body, was no comfort. I felt betrayed by my own uterus.