Shortly after having a 40-pound tumor removed, an Oxnard woman quickly went from a lifesaving surgery to another landmark moment in her life.
Ariana Pulido was on her way to Las Vegas in April when she felt a deep stomach cramp, according to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, which helped treat Ariana. After initially brushing it off for two days, it came back stronger on her way home to Oxnard. Per a Cedars-Sinai media release, the pain she was experiencing was “unbearable.”
“A CT scan at Pulido’s community hospital revealed a large tumor on Pulido’s right ovary roughly the size of a small basketball,” Cedars-Sinai officials stated. “Surgeons removed the cancerous mass, only to discover a smaller tumor on her left ovary, which was removed three months later.”
After the procedures, Ariana went back to work – but life as she knew it went on for about a month before the sharp pains came back, this time in her left shoulder.
Another CT scan showed that she had a third tumor, and she was subsequently diagnosed with growing teratoma syndrome, a rare condition when tumor tissue continues to grow rapidly and uncontrollably, causing them to press on vital organs, hospital officials explained.
The third and largest tumor found on Pulido, then just 22, was about 14 centimeters and located near her liver. Attempts to shrink the tumor through chemotherapy were unsuccessful, and it kept growing rapidly.
“The tumor had progressed so much in size that it was pressing up against her right lung, shifting her heart to the far-left side, essentially under her armpit,” the Cedars-Sinai media release states. “By May 2024, the tumor had reached 27 centimeters, weighed more than 40 pounds and left her wheelchair-bound and dependent on oxygen.”
At this point, the only option left was surgery to remove the tumor; however, after multiple delays and six failed attempts to put Ariana under anesthesia, her original care team decided to scrap the procedure all together.
“They said the next best step for me would be hospice care,” Ariana said, per the media release.
She and her family continued to seek other opinions and eventually chose Dr. Cristina Ferrone, the chair of Cedars-Sinai’s Jim and Eleanor Randall Department of Surgery.
Dr. Ferrone quickly assembled a team of 13 surgeons – from cardiothoracic surgeons to liver transplant teams – to perform the complex operation that, if anything were to go wrong, Ariana would die.
“The tumor was so large and heavy, and it involved such essential blood vessels that if you injure them, it would be very, very difficult to repair them,” Dr. Ferrone said. “An injury like that could quickly lead to death on the operating table.”
Still, Ariana was confident in her decision to undergo the procedure.
“The only one that could decide if I go or stay on that surgery table would be God,” she said. “I just had really high hopes and faith that I was going to make it through.”
And make it through she did. In fact, during the first half of the surgery, doctors only used local anesthesia so Ariana’s respiration and heartbeat would remain stable – meaning she was still awake. Additionally, due to the tumor’s size and location, Ariana couldn’t lie down on the operating table, so she was placed on an incline for the first half of the surgery.
In the end, the whole procedure took 14 hours. Within a week of the tumor removal, Ariana’s lungs could fully expand, her heart was back in the right spot and she was able to breathe on her own for the first time in six months.
Throughout the harrowing health scare, Ariana’s boyfriend, Jeffrey Chavez, remained by her side. He surprised her during last year’s Super Bowl halftime show with a proposal.
She obviously said yes.
Fast forward to June 21 of this year and the pair officially tied the knot. For the future, Ariana will continue to closely monitor her health, but both she and her doctors know that she made it through a very difficult process and is now living her best life.
“When she returned to the clinic a month [after surgery], the entire staff and I were amazed [because] just six weeks earlier, she had been wheeled in in a wheelchair. Now she walked through the doors,” Dr. Ferrone said. “She’s an incredibly strong woman and has a wonderfully supportive family.”
“I feel really good. I feel like a new person and I see the world differently,” Ariana said. “Every day is a positive day.”
