My One Year Anniversary

A year ago, I took the biggest leap of faith that I have faced—I had my breast implants completely removed. I had the support of my loved ones and a group of women in the know, but pretty much everyone else thought I was crazy…including my own doctor. They didn’t believe it, but here I am. Implants gone, body healing, and I feel so so much better than I did a year ago.

I’m not going to sugarcoat the facts. I was scared. I wasn’t 100% sure that I would feel better. BUT, my research made sense to me and it felt right in my gut when nothing else did. I was resolute but still nervous as I checked in for my procedure. While I felt great outside of being sore from major surgery, I still struggled with what I looked like…what I was going to look like.

A year later though, and I look great, I feel great, and I am so happy I took that leap. I still deal with lingering inflammation, but I’m not all that surprised. While I’m not a patient person, I try to remember that I had those toxic bags in me for almost 20 years. It’s probably going to take more than just a year to calm my body down.

The stress from a global pandemic doesn’t help much, that’s for sure. I’m giving myself grace, though, to work through things as they come along, knowing that this too shall pass. I don’t know what normal will look like down the road, but I do know I’m in much better health to face whatever is coming, doctors and the public are beginning to acknowledge that breast implants can cause irreparable damage, and insurance companies are coming around to paying for surgery. That’s progress.

Having my health back was my ultimate goal, but I didn’t expect the best gift of all. In the last year, I have received dozens of calls and emails from women I know that suspected they were sick from their implants too. I also got messages from girlfriends that expressed how glad they were that they choose not to go down the implant road after reading my story. And ultimately the thank yous that I got from total strangers that had totally changed their minds about getting implants after happening to overhear me talking about my journey in public. For all of those women and more, the journey has been worth it.