Actress Busy Philipps spent a busy weekend in a Boston emergency room after checking herself in with "crazy excruciating pain" in her abdomen.
But as scary as that experience felt while doctors examined her in Massachusetts General Hospital on Saturday night, it could have been much, much worse.
"It was determined my ovary had flipped over — it's called torsion," she recounted on Instagram. "Mine flipped back by itself and I'm ok but sometimes if it doesn't you have to get surgery or you can lose your ovary."
That horrific scenario afflicted Anne Wheaton, the wife of "The Big Bang Theory" actor Wil Wheaton, who suffered through days of severe pain in her right side, pelvis and torso before doctors deduced the problem. By then, it was too late to save her ovary, which had to be surgically removed.
"I've had two kids, and it still wasn't at that level of pain," Anne Wheaton told TODAY in June. "The surgeon (later) told my husband that this is the worst pain a woman can go through."
A flipped ovary, more formally known as an "ovarian torsion," can cut off a connecting artery's blood flow and lead to the the death of the organ. Wheaton, a children's book author, said that she believes the loss of her ovary might have been avoided if a female doctor, more in tune with that type of pain, had seen her in time.
Philipps included a plea for her social media followers to go to a doctor if something feels off with their bodies: "...our advice is always, don't be a hero, go to the doctor."
Philipps admitted that she "felt like an idiot for going to the hospital," but in the end it was the right decision. She ended her post with a thank you to the nurses and doctors who took care of her, but fans were thanking her for raising awareness of the condition and symptoms. We hope she's on the mend soon!