Why I decided to have breast implants posed ... and later to have them removed - blog

Quand j’ai lu que Chrissy Teigen avait récemment fait retirer ses implants mammaires, je me suis mise à chercher sur Google des photos de mes propres seins.

In times of containment because of the pandemic of COVID-19, apart from dance to the sound of the club quarantine of DJ D-Nice and to organize videoconferences for my cat (which has nothing to do), I have withoutdoubt too much time to kill.This does not prevent me from having good reasons to do this online research.

Here I am faced with images from me at 20, in my first role, pampering me in the middle of a lake in my simple device.There are also photos of me almost 30 years later, in an episode of my uncle Charlie, with breasts almost twice as big as in the first photos.

All that because someone said to me one day: "You would be canon if you had bigger breasts."

And he was not a man.

It was in the late 1980s. I was 29 years old. Even if this decade was that of the superlative - long hair, wide shoulders - I didn't think I need bigger breasts to improve my professional and love life. I was one of the stars of the Falcon Crest television soap opera. Johnny Carson had interviewed me in his show, The Tonight Show. I had my own series broadcast at a prime time, Lady Blue, where I played the role of a sexy cop (it was Clint Eastwood who taught me to hold a weapon). I even appeared Topless in a few films, my breasts being small enough for this partial nudity to not be a problem. I had celebrity, beauty, money and men, but nothing could fill my lack of insurance. So when my friend presented the possibility of perfection with her comment on my breasts, I thought that by "arranging" my external appearance, the rest would follow inside.

It must also be said that I had grown up in the shadow of a splendid mother.

Rousse, the fine lines, long legs, Reta had been part of the rockettes troop, at the radio City Music Hall, and danced in variety shows and musicals.One of my first memories was linked to the backstage of the musical Guys and Dolls.The dancers cajolized me while trying to adjust their costume, between laughter and whispers, with their false eyelashes, their feathers, their glitter and their rhinestones.A lacquer and perspiration scent floated in the air.They were radiant, magical, powerful.At the time already, I wanted to be like them.

I inherited my mother's red curls, but when I grew up, they turned into indomitable frizz.I was round (or strong, it would be said today) and clumsy, systematically the last to be chosen during the constitution of a sports team and I wore a device.In short, I felt like the nasty little duckling of the swan that was my mother.

Reta had a medium-sized chest and padded her bra for the scene.Sometimes I was going to his closet to borrow his foam pads, and I waged in a nightmare in flannel in an erotic spectacle of pre -adolescent.

I observed for a long time the bras of the lingerie pages for teenage girls, dreaming of the day when my chest would start to push.The day my pediatrician told my mother that I was "in bloom", I felt very proud!I begged her to order a white cotton bra (AAA size) with a little buzz on one of the straps.He scratched me, but I wore it all the time.

The fourth was a miraculous era for me.I grew up suddenly and my baby's overweight melted.I smoothed my curly hair on the hair dryer and I no longer needed to wear a dental appliance.My breasts flourished to become small flowers (miniroses, at most), but I finally had chest.A new world opened and the boys were starting to notice me.Suddenly, I was treated like a pretty girl.However, the unpleasant feeling of not being up to the task persisted.

This is why, years later, when my friend told me about breast implants, her suggestion resonated in me.I was always the one who wanted to become as beautiful as her mother and other magic and sparkling dancers.The one who still believed that if you could improve the outside, the interior would become "sufficient."

My friend put me in touch with a plastic surgeon who adopted a warm country doctor attitude.I immediately trusted him.I told her I didn't want anything too big.I just wanted my breasts to look rounder, a B cap maybe.He assured me that the operation was simple, no more complicated than being pierced with the ears, that my new breasts would be indestructible and would last a whole life.I saw myself in a luscious super woman, and then I imagined myself decomposing myself in my coffin, with dust, bones and two intact silicone balls.What would future civilizations think when they discovered my grave?

When he removed the bandages, I was horrified.

My breasts were huge.It looked like oversized grapes.He told me not to worry, that once the swelling has dropped, I would have the B cap that I had asked.

Three months later, I was still with a D cap. When I complained, he pretended to be surprised."I can't find them too big," he replied."They are the size that I felt to suit you."

These words have remained engraved in my memory.The size he believed to suit me.

Since I didn't want to undergo another operation, I kept my new pin-up tits.

I had a hard time adapting.When I was lying on my stomach, I felt like I was on an inflatable mattress.When I was running or dancing, they swallowed and tugged me, unless I wore a sports bra.Whenever I wore a garment near the body or a neckline, the men stared at my chest.

I finally took all the measure of the famous reply: "Hey, Ho, my eyes are higher."

I started teaching yoga, a discipline that I had studied for years, but I was invaded by a deep discomfort: I was there, with my plastic breasts placed on my chest like donuts on aPlate, preaching well-being and spirituality.For twenty-five years, I felt like I was a smoking.

Then, in 2017, a mammography revealed that one of my implants may have broken out.An MRI examination finally showed that they were intact, but I learned following online research that these ruptures were not always detected.

What to do when you have a blue score? I decided to meet a renowned surgeon in a luxurious building. I told him that I had enough, that I wanted to be with my prostheses, but he did everything to dissuade me. He told me that I would be very unhappy if I removed them without replacing them with something else. "They will look like cushions without stuffing," he summed up (with a lack of blatant tact). I then asked him if we could make a breast lifting. “Do you really want to have scars?” He asked in a contemptuous tone, as if I had told him about having horns put me. I had already seen such scars on friends and they did not seem so terrible. However, I told myself that he was a specialist, and that he must have been right. Why did I continue to abdicate my needs and my desires in the presence of a figure of authority, especially male, when I knew what I wanted? How could he know what would suit me?

My companion and close friends encouraged me to have the implants removed without replacing them.They only cared about my health, not what I looked naked to.But I was not ready.Unfortunately, I was still under the spell of the hyper-feminine voluptuous aesthetic of the review dancer: the generous neckline, the rounded hips and the wasp size that characterize so many women that I admired, like Lily St Cyr,Rose gypsy lee and dita von teese…

So I decided to replace my implants.

And, once again, although I asked the Doctor to shrink them, at the end of the my breasts were just as big.I went from Falcon Crest to Malibu alert ... in an atmosphere that reminded an endless day.

After a few weeks, my right breast underwent a complication called capsular contracture.The scar tissues around the implant had hardened and moved it.A red size the size of a ten -cent piece then appeared.I rushed to the doctor to have her examined, and her face betrayed a concern that did not go good.He told me that I had an infection and that the implant had to be removed as quickly as possible.

In the alarm clock, the nurse was solemn.When I asked her how it happened, she replied, "You lost a lot of fabric.He really got your breast. ”She said the surgeon had to put a bigger implant, to "equalize" things.

This time, at the time of healing, my chest looked like a double bubble with waves.There was also a hollow on the right side, where the infection had occurred.My companion wanted to be reassuring, but I knew that the result was not brilliant.I started to question myself, wondering if I had made a terrible error by not making the implants withdraw as I considered at the start.

A year and a half later, on July 24, 2019, the pharmaceutical allergan laboratory launched a voluntary recall of its textured implants Biocell due to the accumulation of evidence on their link with the BIA-Alcl lymphomas.I went to get the implant labels that the firm had given me as purchasing evidence: on the left, allergan SRM 210 CC smooth;Right allergan trlp 310 cc - textured biocell.

And there, I had a flash of lucidity.

The cup was full.

I had to be removed immediately.

On the recommendation of a friend, I landed in the office of a surgeon who was part of a cabinet entirely made up of women in Beverly Hills.I know that there are very good male surgeons, but I found very comforting to talk about my breasts with a woman.I knew from the first meeting that it was the right one.

The operation lasted six hours.At the end, as for a demonstration by example and speech, she showed me what she had removed: the left implant was transparent and smooth, the size of a bagel, the textured was flat andyellowish, like a small pizza.It was incredible to see them side by side.These awful little plastic bags ridiculously matched were supposed to make me feel more beautiful?What I had inflicted on myself-what I had left others to inflict on me-then appeared to me clearly.

I felt sad and delivered at the same time.

I was free.

A few weeks later (several months before the COVID-19), a friend whom I had not seen for a long time took me in her arms.For almost 30 years, whenever I kissed someone, I felt the implants.There, she was she felt against my heart.I cried.

Do not get me wrong: I am not opposed to implants or cosmetic surgery.I love this sentence of dear: "If I want to be put my breasts on my back, it only looks at me."I know many women who like their implants.But I want people to be informed of all risks before making a decision concerning their bodies.

Despite what my first surgeon told me, breast implants are not designed to be permanent.Doctors advise to replace them every ten years.I was lucky to keep them so long.Not to mention other potential complications, such as cancer.Imagine what a patient who has undergone mastectomy would be felt following breast cancer by learning that her implants could be carcinogenic!For years, some women have suffered from breast implant disease, which can manifest itself by autoimmune disorders, among other symptoms.

After all these surgical interventions, I have scars on the breasts.But I love them.These are the stigma of the war I waged to regain possession of my body.

And I still have breasts, but they are now natural.To use the words of Chrissy Teigen, it is "pure fat […] all animal and miraculous fat bags".And I finally love mine as they are.

This blog, published on the American HuffPost, was translated by Mr. André for Fast Forword.

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