Recent research has shown that cancer cells — aside from replicating on their own — can also reach out to healthy cells and induct them into a tumor, which will help it grow larger and eventually spread. To stop this, some scientists say we need to cut off the blood supply that feeds the tumors. While this may be possible in the United States, it’s far less likely to happen in isolated pockets of the world where access to health care is scarce. One such pocket is the town of Tamshiyacu, Peru, where a 22-year-old woman lives with a 35-pound tumor, grown over the past eight years.

Irianita Rojas first discovered the tumor growing in her abdomen when she was 14 years old. Reuters reports it formed in her ovaries, and over the years had grown to weigh nearly 35 pounds. The tumor was so large, in fact, that her doctor said “it’s as if she were pregnant, but twice the size,” in the video below. Living with such a large tumor affected Rojas’ ability to sleep and lie down, and eventually her breathing.

“I couldn’t work or study with the tumor,” Rojas said in the video below. “I just stayed at home.”

Rojas was discovered during a visit from Peruvian Health Minister Anibal Velasquez, who visited the isolated town more than 600 miles northeast of Peru’s capital, Lima. After hearing about her plight, he ordered his medical staff to take Rojas to Lima, where she would have the surgery to remove the tumor. The operation lasted over three hours, but doctors were successful. Now, they are monitoring Rojas’ condition to see if the cancer has spread to any other parts of her body, and hope no further surgeries or chemotherapy treatments will be necessary.

Now that she has had the tumor removed, Fox News reports Rojas will go to school to fulfill her lifelong dream of studying accounting.

There are an estimated 225,000 new cases of ovarian cancer diagnosed each year worldwide. In the United States, this specific cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer-related death in women, with a five-year survival rating of just 46 percent. A 2013 study found ovarian tumor sizes can vary depending on the stage in which they’re discovered. The largest the study found was just 10.7 centimeters, however, meaning Rojas’ tumor was quite the anomaly.