Venus Williams Reveals the Painful Medical Condition That Left Her 'Laying on the Locker Room Floor' Before Wimbledon

NEED TO KNOW

• Venus Williams shared that she underwent surgery last year for a medical condition that caused her "extreme pain" and left her lying on the locker room floor before Wimbledon in 2016

• The tennis pro shared her health struggle with Today show anchor Zinhle Essamuah on the July 3 episode of the NBC morning show

• Essamuah, who has the same condition, told PEOPLE that she and Williams want to amplify their stories and raise awareness

Venus Williams revaled that she’s had an ongoing, painful struggle with fibroids, which left her “laying on the floor in the locker room” before one of her most iconic matches.

The tennis pro shared her health struggle with Today show anchor Zinhle Essamuah on the July 3 episode of the NBC morning show. Essamuah has been candid about her history with fibroids, which are benign but painful tumors in the uterus that can lead to debilitating symptoms. As NYU Langone Health’s Center for Fibroid Care explains, they “can cause heavy and prolonged periods, pelvic pain, and bladder symptoms.”

“My symptoms were extreme pain. You know, getting so much in pain that maybe you throw up. Or you can’t get off the ground … I missed practices because of that. Just, you know, hugging the toilet,” Williams, 45, told Essamuah, 30.

As Essamuah, whose mother had fibroids as well, tells PEOPLE, "We know that women and and their pain is often ignored." And that was the case for Williams, who shared that before winning her sixth doubles match with sister Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2016, she was “just laying on the floor in the locker room. Like, it's gonna pass, it's gonna pass. And thank God Serena got the doctor. And I was able to get up and eat and start playing [which was] bad luck for our opponents.”

Williams said that at first, she thought her symptoms had to do with Sjögren’s syndrome, which causes fatigue and swollen joints. She first shared her Sjögren’s diagnosis in 2011. “I live with an autoimmune disease. So I thought maybe it was autoimmune anemia or something like that. But really it was what I was dealing with inside, which was fibroids.”

But her symptoms were dismissed, she said. “One doctor told me [when I was 37] … this is a part of aging. This is normal.” Another told her to get a hysterectomy. “I've never been so sad in my life," she recalled. "I had never been running to have kids but I always wanted to have a choice and to have that taken away is just frightening.”

She finally landed with Dr. Tara Shirazian from NYU’s Langone Health's Center for Fibroid Care, who performed a myomectomy a year ago. It’s a surgical procedure that removes the fibroids while keeping the uterus intact. As Williams said, the fibroids could be “big like an orange.”

“Women know their bodies. They will tell you how they feel,”  Dr. Shirazian told Today. “They will explain their symptoms. Really all we have to do is listen.”

For July's Fibroid Awareness Month, Williams is speaking out to encourage women to keep seeking answers. As she told Essamuah, “You can be denied the best health care no matter who you are. And that you have to be your own advocate. Hopefully someone will see this interview and say, 'I can get help. I don't have to live this way.' "

Essamuah echoed that sentiment to PEOPLE, urging women to continue to push for answers when they feel like something is wrong. "I was once given advice. It's okay to be brassy," she said. "So many of us women, we defer to wanting to be people pleasers. We don't want to ruffle feathers, but when it comes to our health and our bodies, ultimately you are the one living in your body. You are the one who knows what it feels like to be. And that would be my message. It's okay to push."

As Essamuah tells PEOPLE, "many women are only offered hysterectomies when there are so many other options. And so the hope is by amplifying stories like one of the greatest athletes in the world, we can also make sure that doctors and patients are aware: Hey, more is available, we just need to offer it and we just need to invest it."

And it's a worthwhile investment, given that up to 80% of women may develop fibroids in their lifetime.

While Williams hints at a return to the court — "I’m not playing badly so you never know," she told Essamuah — "I've been taking this time to rest and recover and live my life and be, you know, a happy person without fibroids.”

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