Dear Kaylee,
You are one lucky young woman. You are the most vibrant, healthy and happy 20-year old. You have the world in the palm of your hand. You’re doing great in school, have a fun bar-tending job and a great social life. You’re a genuinely kind person, and just beautiful inside and out. If only you could see this, maybe you could learn to love yourself before it’s too late.
I know you’re struggling inside, but we all have body insecurities that we want to change. I understand that you’re most insecure about your flat chest, but I wish you could just embrace it and love yourself in your natural state. Now, let me warn you: implanting two foreign objects into your chest is going to change a whole lot more than your bra size.
I know how determined you are to achieve your idea of the “perfect body”. Even your plastic surgeon will tell you that a breast augmentation will only improve your quality of life and your self-esteem! It will make your decision to go under the knife that much easier. You will trust your plastic surgeon. Why wouldn’t you? He is a doctor, after all. You’ll think he really has your best interest at heart. He will assure you that saline breast implants are the safest on the market. He will silence any of your doubts. The only question he will leave in your mind is whether or not you should go bigger. He will tell you that most women wish they had, and that’s the only complaint he had ever heard from his former patients.
Your surgeon will forget to tell you one thing; you are just a guinea pig. He won’t tell you that there is a major lack of research regarding long-term effects of saline breast implants. It must have been lost in translation, as he will continue to rave about all the ways that breast implants will improve your life. He’s going to tell you that your implants will last a lifetime! Deep down, you’ll know it sounds too good to be true. That’s because it is. You will convince yourself that a one-time fee of $7,500 would be worth the money. It’s a lot of money, but he says that they will never have to be removed, and you will be one step closer to perfection. If you only knew the financial burden that awaits you.
That one-time fee of $7,500 will quickly turn to $25,000 over the next 6 years. You’ll have endless medical bills, treatments, medications, and you will ultimately need a second surgery. You will lose wages in the meantime, as you’ll be far too ill to hold down a job. Oh, and you can forget about being able to continue to bartend. Your arms and your legs will start to go numb randomly, and you’ll lose the strength in your arms and hands to even pour a drink. Besides, how are you going to be able to remember any of the customer’s orders with the memory loss and brain fog you’ll start to experience? Some days the extreme fatigue will the best of you. Just getting yourself ready and driving to work will be exhausting. Soon, you will be too sick and too tired to work at all. If your desire is to become extremely sick, broke, and depressed, then this is definitely the perfect procedure for you.
The new clothes and bathing suits you can’t wait to buy after surgery will end up going to waste. Going to the beach or on vacation will become a distant memory. The sun will be far too bright for your sensitive eyes and skin. Your joint pain will be too unbearable to lay in the sand on the beach or even on a cushioned lounge chair by the pool. The social life you once had and your motivation to get dressed up and ready to go out will become non-existent. So there will be no need for a new wardrobe; sweat pants and t-shirts will become your new go-to outfit. Save that wardrobe money and get yourself a comfortable bed. You’re going to spend most of your time there.
You won’t have much energy at all at this point. You’ll spend what little you have left traveling from doctor to doctor, searching for an answer. You’ll almost always leave the office disappointed and in tears. You won’t even have the energy to convince your family that you’re not crazy or a hypochondriac anymore.
You will reach a place of desperation. You’ll start to hope that your doctors can find something, anything wrong. You need answers, and the years of suffering without any explanation will feel unbearable. You’ll constantly be asked what’s wrong, and you’ll barely be able to simply mutter “I’m sick”. With what? You won’t know. You will know you’re sick, but no one, including you, will know why for many years to come.
After 6 miserable years, you will learn about Breast Implant Illness (BII), and it’s all going to finally make sense. You may think back to your psychologist clearance appointment just before your surgery, which was a requirement of your trusty surgeon. You’ll wonder why he would send you to a psychologist, while supposedly having no idea that women with no mental health issues prior to implanting are still 12 times more likely to commit suicide versus women without implants. Your skepticism will continue to grow, and that high suicide rate among women with implants will come as no surprise to you by this point. Your depression and anxiety will take over your mind. You will struggle to the darkest depths, darker than you could have ever imagined possible. Some days, you will wish it could all just be over. You will have no quality of life, and some days just won’t feel worth living anymore. You will wonder how your life has completely deteriorated right before your eyes. You will feel fooled by the cosmetic surgery industry. You will wish that you could go back and just love yourself for who you are.
In your own studies, you will find that there is little to no research linking your symptoms to your implants. Adverse effects of your “safe” saline implants will be especially difficult to research as they are approved by the FDA and have been for many years. You will wonder how your own providers could promise you that your implants are not the cause of your illness. How is it even possible for doctors to come to this conclusion with such certainty? Sure, there’s no research that proves that implants make you sick, but there’s also no research that proves they don’t. These surgeons know the risks that their young, vulnerable patients are signing up for, and they will do a great disservice to many other women like you. They will operate on unsuspecting patients like yourself. They will continue to promote what will make you “beautiful”, and you will never have the opportunity to make an informed decision.
This illness is going to leave a debilitating scar on your body and your health. It will scar you emotionally as well. It will affect your ability to maintain a good relationship with your family and boyfriend. It will destroy your financial state and obliterate any career goals. In essence, it is going to ruin your life and you’re going to have to start all over, rebuilding your life piece by piece. This is why, Kaylee, I am urging you to learn to love yourself. Embrace your beauty and your perceived flaws. You are worth so much to so many people and we love you exactly as you are.
Love, Kaylee
See her story on CBS here.