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Lena Dunham Shares Photo in Hospital After Undergoing Hysterectomy

Lena-Dunham-Hysterectomy
Lena Dunham attends HBO's Golden Globe Awards afterparty at Circa 55 restaurant in Los Angeles on January 7, 2018.Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Three days after revealing that she underwent a hysterectomy, Lena Dunham shared a photo of herself sitting in a hospital bed alongside a message of gratitude.

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“Your body failing you is a loss that’s hard to explain and yet the amount of messages I’ve gotten from women in a similar predicament has been so overwhelming, loving and heartening,” the Girls star, 31, wrote on Instagram on Friday, February 16.

“More than 60 million women in America are living with hysterectomies and those of you who’ve shared your plight and perseverance make me feel so honored to be in your company,” she continued. “Thank you to the village of women who took care of me through this entire process. I have a broken heart and I hear those don’t mend overnight, but we are linked forever by this experience and our refusal to let it hold any of us back from even the grandest dreams.”

As previously reported, Dunham wrote an essay in the March 2018 issue of Vogue about having her uterus and cervix removed last year in an attempt to end her pain from endometriosis, a condition that can cause pelvic discomfort, fertility issues and heavy bleeding during menstrual cycles.

The writer, who split from boyfriend of five years Jack Antonoff in December, said she can no longer carry a child of her own, but she is still open to the idea of becoming a mother one day.

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“I may have felt choiceless before, but I know I have choices now,” she wrote. “Soon I’ll start exploring whether my ovaries, which remain someplace inside me in that vast cavern of organs and scar tissue, have eggs. Adoption is a thrilling truth I’ll pursue with all my might.”

Antonoff, 33, showed his support for his ex-girlfriend on Twitter on Wednesday, February 14, by sharing a link to her essay and writing, “Beautiful piece.” The essay included a bit about their relationship, with Dunham writing, “He reminds me again and again that I am still a woman and still alive, but I also know that soon — for so many reasons that have nothing to do with my uterus — we’ll slip away from each other and I will face everything I am losing in impossibly tiny steps.”

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