WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Robyn McGhee, 28, went to the doctors after people mistakenly thought she was pregnant – and discovered she had a giant ovarian cyst that made it hard for her to walk
In February 2024, Robyn McGhee noticed that she was gaining weight. However, with Christmas and New Year’s just gone, she put it down to overindulging over the festive period and resolved to hit the gym and cut back.
“I spent a few months eating healthy and trying to lose weight but the weight wasn’t shifting, I was actually getting bigger,” she said. “I could physically see it, it wasn’t all in my head.”
Then the tiredness came, and the pressure she felt to lose the weight intensified – worsened by the fact that strangers on the street were asking her when she was due to give birth. The 28-year-old from Glasgow told The Mirror: “I just had to say ‘no I’m not pregnant’ and just leave so they didn’t feel awkward. It kind of highlighted how extreme my stomach actually looked.”
Looking back at the pictures now, Robyn said, it’s hard to feel angry at the people who presumed she was pregnant. “I looked about eight or nine months pregnant, the weight had shot up. But I couldn’t eat at all, I’d lost my appetite.”
At one point, despite knowing she wasn’t, Robyn thought: “Maybe I am pregnant, maybe that’s what is going on and I just don’t have the usual symptoms that you would expect.”
None of her clothes would fit, she couldn’t go out, and was struggling to walk. After returning from a holiday in June during which she didn’t feel like herself, Robyn decided it was time to see a doctor. “At that point, I could feel a ball in my stomach and it was causing a lot of pain. I went to the doctor and explained my symptoms and they off the bat said ‘are you pregnant’,” she said. “I knew I wasn’t, I’d taken a few pregnancy tests.”
Robyn added: “I felt like I was getting dismissed by the doctor, I explained my symptoms and said I was worried it was something more than weight gain and they said ‘like what?’ I thought, ‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m here’.”
After getting a second opinion, Robyn was referred for urgent CT scans and blood work, which was when they found the cyst. It was about 25cm and weighed more than a stone.
The NHS describes an ovarian cyst as a fluid-filled sac that develops on an ovary. Symptoms can include pelvic pain, heavy or irregular periods, a swollen tummy, pain during sex, a frequent need to urinate, and feeling full after only eating a little.
Despite knowing an operation was imminent, Robyn felt that she could finally breathe. “I was relieved, because I had an answer for why I was feeling this way. It was confirming that it wasn’t all in my head, it was actually happening to me.”
In September, Robyn underwent a three-hour operation. While keyhole surgery is usually used for cysts, the size of Robyn’s meant that open surgery was the only option for her, and she now has a large scar down the centre of her stomach.
But there was another surprise in store when surgeons found that she had endometriosis as well – which is a disease in which tissue on the inside of the uterus grows outside of it. According to Endometriosis UK, 10% of women (176 million) worldwide have endometriosis, which can cause severe period pain, heavy periods, and pain when going to the toilet.
“I thought my period symptoms were normal, the pains and cramps I had were the type that everybody had,” she said.
Doctors removed the cyst, along with one of Robyn’s ovaries and fallopian tubes, and her appendix. The recovery took about 12 weeks and the first part was “really tough” with “ridiculous” amounts of pain. “I also felt a lot lighter, obviously,” she said.
Taking her experience to social media was her next step, and the decision to open up came from the lack of stories or resources on the topic out there, she said. “I was trying to research the type of surgery I was getting online and on TikTok but there wasn’t that much about it. I thought ‘I don’t have any reference point of anybody going through a similar situation to what I am’.”
Since posting her story on her TikTok page (@_robynmcghee), Robyn has had messages from people all over the world. “It’s been wild, I feel like I have helped people”, she explained. While the operation was “absolutely terrifying”, she insists to others going through the same thing that it was “better than any other outcome”.
