Fair warning, this is a “too much information” column.

No offence to any Bruce’s out there, but I have never had any particular affinity for that name, though my history with the moniker actually predates my existence.

Before I was born, my very jealous, much older sister insisted if my parents were going to persist in giving her a sibling then it had better be a boy named Bruce.

Why Bruce? Who knows?

To her everlasting disappointment, I was sadly born a girl not named Bruce.

My first boyfriend, oddly enough, was named Bruce and when he would call the house my dear Daddy would shout from his throne [recliner] in the living room that BUH-RUUuuuuccce!!! was on the phone for me. Extra emphasis on the “BUH.”

He turned out to be a jerk so…

Fast forward a few years and in my twenties I started having major abdominal pain.

In the middle of a prolonged and awful divorce, I didn’t have access to health insurance at this point in my life so finding out what could be causing the pain was not only expensive but easy to blame on having Lupus.

I decided to do what I always do and ignore it, until after almost two years, when the pain became particularly acute. After a very rough night, I’ll kindly spare you the details of, I threw in the towel and did what all of us tough, big girls do — I called my mother.

She came not long after, loaded me in the car, and paid close to $300 to the doctor’s office — all for the pleasure of a doctor to see me, run labs, and then conclude he had no idea what was wrong with me. Though he assured my mother something definitely was, he just didn’t know what, and judging by the state I was in, recommended that I head immediately to the emergency room.

At the ER, it was decided an ultrasound should be done. The lady who performed my ultrasound was very sweet and not good at lying. During the scan, she asked me where my left ovary was. I naturally was perplexed — what did she mean? Couldn’t she see it?

After I answered “As far as I know,” she began prattling inanely about how inflammation might be blocking her view.

At this point my medical captors had refused me pain medicine and water, despite my obvious pain and dehydration, and I had been told I could have neither until this scan was done, so I didn’t really care where my left ovary was either.

Back in my hospital room, the doctor came by to talk to my parents and I about his findings.

To say we were all unprepared is probably an understatement.

As luck would have it, in no relation to any of my autoimmune conditions, I had developed a teratoma. The doctor was insistent surgery begin immediately because my body was already showing signs of shutting down and my ever present friend, sepsis, was waiting in the wings.

What is a teratoma? Well, let me tell ya all about it!

It is a tumor that contains multiple tissues from multiple different body parts, such as hair, teeth, bone, and muscle.

According to the doctor, my left ovary was gone, apparently eaten by Bruce! And, he was in there even now, all fat and happy, snacking on my fallopian tube!

Yes, I named my body’s mutant “baby” Bruce.

And yes, when my parents later didn’t want my kids in their attic, my current husband and I definitely told them their older brother Bruce lived up there chained like Sloth from The Goonies.

After the emergency surgery to remove Bruce, I don’t remember much of what the doctor said to me, but what I do recall him saying is my teratoma was the biggest he’d ever seen. In fact, he sounded quite giddy telling me how a second bag was required to fully fit Bruce into.

A mature teratoma, Bruce had hair, teeth, bones, muscle and skin.

I am still trying to forgive my mother for not acting on my behalf whilst I was incapacitated to insist she or I be given Bruce’s “body.” I really feel disappointed in missing out on such a golden opportunity to keep him floating in a jar of formaldehyde on my mantle. Think of the conversation starter that could have been!

In all seriousness, a teratoma can be a dangerous condition. They can occur in various parts of the body, are considered rare, can develop in either gender and are thought to start in the germ cells, or the cells that create eggs and sperm. Symptoms you may experience depend on where the teratoma is located in the body.

Some teratomas are benign and others are cancerous. Recent studies have shown some teratomas do contain DNA.