Hunger Games and Fire Country star Leven Rambin recently shared a scary health update. The 36-year-old actress went into the hospital for what she says was a “routine” endometriosis laparoscopy and ended up fighting for her life.
Rambin posted on TikTok that she was undergoing the procedure to diagnose her endometriosis, remove adhesions, and improve her fertility. Her doctor assured her she would be fine to start filming a new Netflix series in two weeks. Instead, she woke up in the ICU with a scar “the size of her forearm.”
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During the procedure, her surgeon accidentally “nicked” her aorta, the large blood vessel that passes through the abdomen to deliver blood throughout the body. Rambin had to have emergency repair surgery and a blood transfusion. When she woke up, doctors told her she was lucky to be alive.
Endometriosis is an incurable, “whole-body” disease. It occurs when endometrial-like tissue (NOT endometrial tissue) grows outside of the uterus. This tissue can spread and bind to the ovaries, fallopian tubes, bowel, bladder, and pelvic lining, among other places.
Rambin’s doctor promised her she would be back on a Netflix set in two weeks. But for most endometriosis patients undergoing true excision surgery, a full recovery can take anywhere from four to six weeks. (It took me every bit of four weeks to recover from my first and second surgery.)
Furthermore, a standard OBGYN or a random hospital doctor shouldn’t be performing this procedure. Treating the disease safely requires an experienced excision specialist with the advanced training to meticulously cut it out at the root. Without that specialized expertise, patients face severe risks, as Rambin’s injured aorta proves.
“The first thing I said to her, through my anesthesia, was, ‘Is this your fault?’” Rambin recalled. “She said, ‘Yes, it’s my fault.’ I said, ‘Aren’t you a specialist?’ And she said, ‘I’m human.’” Rambin said she was “pissed” but understood it was a “one-in-a-million ‘freak accident.’”
Now recovering at home with a hysterectomy pillow, Rambin is dealing with intense back pain, full-body soreness, and nausea. She had to drop out of her upcoming Netflix project, but she did leave the hospital with a formal diagnosis of stage 1 endometriosis and polyps.
“Why yes, I am up and walking after this crazy traumatic surgery,” she said in a July 12 TikTok update. “They told me that’s the best thing for healing, and I’m a f–king bad b—h. I’m not gonna sit there and cry, although I have been crying. I think the reality is starting to hit me of what happened.”
While it’s understandable that Rambin’s primary goal was preserving her fertility, a real and valid concern for many endo warriors, her comments highlight a frustrating narrative. Too often, endometriosis is only treated seriously when a woman is trying to get pregnant. But endo is a debilitating, chronic condition that causes severe pain and organ dysfunction. Women deserve safe, effective, and expert care so they can live pain-free lives, whether they want to have children or not.
Despite the trauma, Rambin is keeping her sense of humor.
“I almost lost my life during the surgery… and all of this is so I can prepare to have kids,” she said. “So my kid better be f-king awesome. Cute. Not terrible. And I’ll be like, yeah, all this was worth it.”
