“I ‘went flat’ after the most miserable year of my life, when I opted for breast implants and reconstruction with my double mastectomy in May 2022. Immediately I knew my body was not handling the implants right, and I was developing something called Breast Implant Illness. Within weeks I’d developed a massive hematoma, and my chest swelled to five times it’s size. While I should’ve been given surgery right there and then to remove the implants, I was forced to wait and get sicker and sicker for an entire year. You could see the life force draining from me, and with each passing week I felt more and more physically limited, until I couldn’t even lift 10lbs without extreme discomfort. Finally after a long several months of advocating for myself I was able to have the implants taken out, in a surgery called a bilateral explant, and within DAYS I was seeing vast improvements in my health. I am absolutely certain if I didn’t have the explant I was heading towards death. I wouldn’t have b...