ABC News Anchor, 47, Reveals ‘Miserable’ Health Battle

ABC News anchor Linsey Davis is speaking publicly for the first time about her decade-long battle with struggle with uterine fibroids and her decision to undergo a hysterectomy.

The ABC News Live Prime With Linsey Davis and World News Tonight anchor, 47, opened up about her diagnosis Monday in a special conversation with singer Tamar Braxton and The Real Housewives of Atlanta‘s Cynthia Bailey, both of whom have spoken about their journey with fibroids.

Uterine fibroids are muscular tumors that grow in or on the wall of the uterus, according to the Office on Women’s Health, affecting up to 80% of women by age 50 and especially impacting Black women. While the tumors are almost always benign, they can cause symptoms including difficult menstrual cycles, frequent urination, heavy bleeding, pain, bloating, and reproductive difficulties.

Davis told PEOPLE ahead of her conversation with Bailey and Braxton that she was first diagnosed with fibroids 13 years ago, but that her case was mild and she was able to welcome son Ayden in 2014 without complication.

Six years later, Davis began having “really drastically bad periods” that would last for about two weeks. “They would be very intense bleeding, and my stomach would be bloated as if I were six months pregnant again,” she said.

Davis would go on to have six fibroids removed in a myomectomy, which provided relief for her symptoms until about a year and a half ago. Doctors then determined that the ABC anchor has 13 fibroids that could be removed via another myomectomy or a uterine fibroid embolization, or that she could permanently solve her fibroid issue with a hysterectomy.

Thinking about the “miserable and very difficult situation” she often endures due to her fibroids, Davis decided to go through with the hysterectomy.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ABC News Live (@abcnewslive)

Helping her make that decision was the reaction to her Oscars coverage in March, when viewers speculated that her on-camera bloating was actually proof that she was pregnant.

“It was such an embarrassing moment … but it is a pouch that, you know, happens,” Davis said during her conversation with Bailey and Braxton.

Davis is set to undergo her hysterectomy surgery on Aug. 15, and she told PEOPLE she’s already looking forward to life after recovery. “I guess I just want to be final. You just want to be finished,” she said. “It causes me enough angst and grief, and, you know, planning my day differently, accordingly, that I really feel like I’m ready to be finished with this journey.”