SHARING THEIR PAIN: PaSean Wilson Ashley asked fellow fibroid sufferers singer-actress Rhonda Ross, supermodel Beverly Johnson and other women to share their stories to help raise awareness through her documentary, Stranger Within: Fibroid Stories. (Please note that this trailer includes a graphic shot of fibroids.)
Telling a Powerful Story
Faced with the prospect of a hysterectomy at 43, Ashley hid her fears behind bravado. “I looked at my doctor that day and I laughed. I said: ‘Please! It is not going to happen. I’m leaving here right now, and I’m going hiking.’ Then I went outside, sat in my car and cried.”
“Next, I turned myself over to Dr. Sebi, the Los Angeles-based natural healer. I spent thousands of dollars and went down to 93 pounds at 5’3’’ on his diet.” But the controversial Sebi, born Alfredo Bowman in Honduras, was unable to help her. (He has also claimed that he can cure AIDS.)
“I also tried acupuncture, but nothing was working until a friend of mine told me about Dolores Kent, M.D., a surgeon in Beverly Hills. She examined me, and I braced myself — waiting to hear the word ‘hysterectomy’ one more time. Instead, she promised and performed a myomectomy. But after my successful surgery, I heard that another young woman in the same hospital had lost her uterus because a doctor didn’t think he could save it from fibroids.”
“After my nearly three-year odyssey, I decided I had to do something,” Ashley says.
Singer-actress Rhonda Ross
Supermodel Beverly Johnson
That’s when Ashley asked fellow fibroid sufferers singer-actress Rhonda Ross, supermodel Beverly Johnson and other women to help her raise awareness. She is still working on her documentary, Stranger Within: Fibroid Stories.
“I don’t want anyone else to spend years looking for help,” she says. “I want to know why? What is the origin of fibroids?”
