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Last fall, Love and Hip Hop Miami star Shay Johnson, otherwise known as Buckeey to some reality TV fans, was admitted to the hospital for a few days and required a blood transfusion during her stay. As she told her Instagram followers at the time, “my blood is low, I’m dizzy.”

In a clip from a new episode of LHHM, we’re getting some more insight into the medical issues that sent Johnson to the hospital. During a conversation with a friend named Michelle Pooch, Johnson shared that she had been suffering with two fibroids, one the size of a grapefruit. And while by the age of 50, studies have found that 80 percent of African-American women will have fibroids, these non-cancerous tumors vary in placement, size, when they grow, and effects. In Johnson’s case, hers were causing extreme blood loss during her periods.

“I do have a medical condition called fibroids, and fibroids is a benign tumor that grows on your uterus,” she told Pooch. “I have two, and one is very, very large. The last time we measured, it was the size of a grapefruit. I have heavy menstrual cycles, for longer than 15 days. On top of that, I’ve been fainting because I’ve been losing so much blood. And my doctor said I’ll start hemorrhaging, which I would then need to have blood transfusions. So to avoid that, they’re trying to rush and get it out. The reason I’m scared is because I’ve never been under the knife.”

In the clip, Johnson begins to cry over the stress and her fear of having to undergo surgery. With at least one of her fibroids having been quite large, Johnson’s surgery might have required a myomectomy through the abdomen with a four to six-week recovery period — hence her “under the knife” statement.

“I’m trying to be strong about it,” she said. “I’m a little terrified of going through the surgery, and I’m terrified of my menstrual cycles because I keep fainting and I’m not knowing how long I’m out, when I’m getting up and stuff like that.”

“They’re going to remeasure the size that it is, and then we’ll schedule an appointment to have the surgery,” she added.

Johnson also took to social media to let people know that the symptoms she dealt with because of her fibroids were the absolute worst.

“I had every last symptom X’s 10!” she said. “Other symptoms included my anemia which increased because my iron was extremely low do to heavy long extended menstruals. My menstrual would last up to 14 days. When I was normal it was it six days. I was also advised at the rate my tumor was growing it would affect me having children. Not only that I started hemorrhaging and fainting which at that point I needed blood transfusions. This was the worst. I understand how common fibroids are in women but unfortunately I had a very bad case worse than average. I felt like something was growing in me bigger then a softball and it was growing monthly. I couldn’t sleep most nights as it got worst. Lastly as far as a Relationship well that was non existent for me because I was embarrassed and didn’t want to bring anyone into my situation. It took over my life at one point.”

She said in another clip on her Instagram that after her stomach started bulging because of the larger fibroid, and following an increase in back and leg pain and worries about how her fibroids would affect her ability to have children, she didn’t say she had surgery after all, but rather, she started taking herbs.

“I really relieved a lot of my symptoms.”

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