They Were My Angels: How Two Surgeons Helped Princess Find Relief After a Year of Unanswered Pain

By the time Princess Williams arrived at Cleveland Clinic in Florida 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 had fibroids in the past and underwent a procedure (myomectomy) to remove them, she felt that the pain was different this time. It was in her rectal area and the area where her ovaries were. It also occurred even when she was not menstruating.

Prior to going to Cleveland Clinic, Princess’ gynecologist had offered a hysterectomy (a surgical procedure to remove the uterus) as a solution to the fibroids that were thought to be reoccurring. Princess was 40 years old at the time and already had grown children but was engaged to be married and had hoped to have a child with her fiancé. However, she says, the pain was so bad she would do anything for relief.

She had the hysterectomy in April 2024 but a week later was back in the emergency room with the same pain. She was told it was probably due to her recent surgery, but she says she was convinced that something else was wrong. She had undergone previous abdominal surgeries, and this was not like pain she had ever experienced from them. Scans and ultrasounds did not reveal anything more, so she was advised to go back to see her surgeon.

“I was literally in pain 24 hours a day. Nothing I could do was calming it,” Princess says. She had tried all kinds of pain medicines with no relief and couldn’t even sit without a heating pad.

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.

“I felt good,” Princess says of her first visit to Cleveland Clinic. “I felt like at that point I was going to get some help.”

The colonoscopy found no cancer but there was a large mass of endometrial tissue attached to Princess’ intestine and rectal area and was part of what was causing her so much pain. Princess would have to have surgery to remove it.

“They went above and beyond for me and that meant the world to me. They made me feel so loved and so special and so cared for. And, they listened to me.”

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 endometriosis 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 surgery revealed endometriosis had also affected one of Princess’ ovaries, requiring its removal. The rectal mass was bigger than expected and required removal of the rectum and placement of an ileostomy bag (a pouch on the outside of the body that is connected to the intestine to collect fecal waste from the body). Dr. Da Silva had told Princess that there was a chance she would come out of surgery with a temporary ileostomy bag.

The damage that the endometriosis did to Princess’ rectum required Dr. Da Silva to remove and rebuild Princess’ rectum. The ileostomy bag was put in place to take over until the new rectum healed and was deemed good enough to function on its own.

Dealing with the bag was very hard for Princess emotionally but, she says, Dr. Da Silva and Dr. Frazzini helped get her through the fear and anxiety she had about it.

“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.

“That was the best news I could ever have received,” Princess says.

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.

She says she is grateful to have crossed paths with Dr. Frazzini and Dr. Da Silva and for their expertise and professionalism.

“My quality of life is so much better now,” she says. “I will never go anywhere else but Cleveland Clinic, ever.”