Lena Dunham Undergoes Surgery to Remove Ovary, Reveals the 'Big Lesson' She Learned

Lena Dunham has revealed she underwent a two hour surgery on Tuesday (October 16) to remove her left ovary that was encased in scar tissue and fibrosis.

“Yesterday I had a two hour surgery to remove my left ovary, which was encased in scar tissue & fibrosis, attached to my bowel and pressing on nerves that made it kinda hard to walk/pee/vamp. Over the last month it got worse and worse until I was simply a burrito shaped like a human,” Lena wrote on her Instagram account, along with a photo of her in a hospital bed.

Lena continued, “I spent 9 hours in the post op recovery area with v low blood pressure that nurses were diligently monitoring….A lot of people commented on my last post about being too sick to finish promoting my [new HBO] show [Camping] by saying they thought my hysterectomy would have fixed it (so did I). That I should get acupuncture and take supplements (I do). That I should see a therapist because it’s clearly psychological (year 25, y’all. These are the fruits!)”

“But a big lesson I’ve learned in all this is that health, like most things, isn’t linear- things improve and things falter and you start living off only cranberry juice from a sippy cup/sleeping on a glorified heating pad but you’re also happier than you’ve been in years,” Lena wrote. “I feel blessed creatively and tickled by my new and improved bellybutton and so so so lucky to have health insurance as well as money for care that is off my plan. But I’m simultaneously shocked by what my body is and isn’t doing for me and red with rage that access to medical care is a privilege and not a right in this country and that women have to work extra hard just to prove what we already know about our own bodies and what we need to be well. It’s humiliating.”

Lena then concluded, “My health not being a given has paid spiritual dividends I could never have predicted and it’s opened me up in wild ways and it’s given me a mission: to advocate for those of us who live at the cross section of physical and physic pain, to remind women that our stories don’t have to look one way, our pain is our gain and oh shit scars and mesh ‘panties’ are the fucking jam. Join me, won’t you?”