By the time Princess Williams arrived at Cleveland Clinic Weston Hospital in 2024, she was frustrated and depressed. She had been dealing with persistent, severe, and debilitating chronic pelvic pain for the past year due to what she had been told were fibroids (a common type of noncancerous tumor that grows on the uterus). Though she had fibroids in the past and underwent a procedure (myomectomy) to remove them, she felt that the pain was different this time.
Prior to going to Cleveland Clinic, Princess’ gynecologist recommended a hysterectomy (a surgical procedure to remove the uterus) as a solution to the fibroids that were thought to be recurring. Princess had the hysterectomy in April 2024, but a week later was back in the emergency room with the same pain.
She was sent for several more tests, but her doctor still could not correctly identify the cause of her pain. By June, she says she went into a “deep depression.”
“I was in so much pain. I was crying all the time because everyone kept telling me it would get better, but no one even knew what was wrong with me,” she says.
Princess had been on a leave of absence from her job as a Transportation Security Administration agent at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport since February. On her first day back in June, her supervisor, after hearing about all that Princess had been through, recommended she go to Cleveland Clinic in Florida.
She took her supervisor’s advice and made an appointment to see gynecologic surgeon Pamela Frazzini, MD. After talking with Princess, discussing her medical history, and doing a pelvic exam, Dr. Frazzini was able to diagnose Princess with stage 4 deep infiltrative endometriosis, a condition in which tissue that is similar to the lining of the uterus grows on other areas of the body. Having also found a mass in her rectum, Dr. Frazzini referred Princess to colorectal surgeon Giovanna Da Silva, MD, for a colonoscopy to rule out cancer.
The colonoscopy found no cancer, but there was a large mass of endometrial tissue attached to Princess’ intestine and rectal area, which was part of what was causing her so much pain. Princess would need surgery to remove it.
So, on the day after Thanksgiving in 2024, Drs. Frazzini and Da Silva operated together on Princess to remove the mass, clean out all the additional endometrial tissue, and check her ovaries. Princess was so grateful that the two surgeons agreed to perform her procedure on that day. They sacrificed their own time on the holiday weekend because they understood how much Princess had been suffering.
“They were my angels,” Princess says of Drs. Frazzini and Da Silva. “They didn’t have to do it on that day. But I was in so much pain that they agreed to come in the day after Thanksgiving to do my surgery.”
The damage that the endometriosis did to Princess’ rectum required Dr. Da Silva to remove and rebuild it. An ileostomy bag (a pouch on the outside of the body that is connected to the intestine to collect fecal waste from the body) was put in place to take over until the new rectum healed and was deemed good enough to function on its own.
“They went above and beyond for me, and that meant the world to me,” Princess says. “They made me feel so loved and so special and so cared for. And they listened to me.”
She was very happy when, about four months later, in March of 2025, tests showed the new rectum was functioning well, and she was able to have the bag removed.
Princess’ life is now pain-free and pretty much back to normal, she says. She is working, traveling with her fiancé, and enjoying her family, which includes her two daughters and her four-year-old grandson.
“My quality of life is so much better now,” she says. “I will never go anywhere else but Cleveland Clinic, ever.” Call 877.463.2010 to schedule an appointment with Dr. Frazzini, Dr. Da Silva, or another specialist at Cleveland Clinic Weston Hospital
