When I look back at the overall cost of this disease, I am truly unable to calculate it, and I work in finance! I am horrified at what I feel was never told when I was sold these implants. There was no long explanation of the risks and disclosure that I would not be covered by insurance, if there were any complications.
It was quite the contrary. I was in a sales funnel and I was told that if I joined a “clinical trial” I would save money and have the best implants on the market. Not being someone who liked to pay retail I signed up, and in these toxic sacks went. Little did I know this one decision had the ability to emotionally, financially, and physically bankrupt me.
The financial mind in me is fascinated with how we truly calculate the “cost” of breast implants and the illnesses associated with them. I struggled to really accept the truth as I began to think about what this had cost me. I was ashamed that I put “looking perfect” over any other goal and I felt so much shame as I sat down to look at the overall cost. When I decided to write about this, I was dumbfounded after I algebraically tried to see what going from a small B cup to a full C converting into a DD had actually cost me.
The economics of this disease are truly complex. First, there is the scenario assuming there are no complications with the initial surgery. If you add up the cost if the initial implants and the lost income from the minimum of a week you miss from work getting better, you are just getting started.
See, what I did not look at is the overall lifetime cost of the implants. What we need to realize is that there is the maintenance cost of replacing the implants in ten years, and at 25 yers old, that meant 5X the origin costs because I intend to live well past 75.
Then, assume that you have to miss 5 more weeks of work, and add that in. On average implants are $15,000 x 6=$90,000. Now consider what your weekly target income is @ a minimum of $5,000 x 6 weeks you have another $30,000. I am not adding in the “equipment costs, “i.e., new bras, and clothing to show off the new look. So, assume in a best case scenario a 25 year-old woman gets implants. It will cost her over $125,000 in her life. This is given the best case scenario. Now in many places this is a home, or a nice condo or even start-up capital for a business.
Now consider the other scenario. Things do not go well and the FDA announces that they are recalling implants because they cause a form of cancer. Imagine you have spent years on a feeding tube and have given up eating solid food. You are hospitalized for hundreds of days due to infections, obstructions, dehydration, and even suffer a cardiac arrest. You now have epilepsy and can no longer drive.
Then imagine you are sick, you cannot work, and you are losing money and unable to pay for your health insurance, as the company calls your issue a “Pre-Existing Condition.” You rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills by age thirty and cannot get a credit card or apartment 0n your own.
You begin to fight to help others with pre-existing conditions as you are not going to be covered and need to go on public medical assistance. You really believe being under-insured is your issue. Instead of the fancy plastic surgeon’s office, you are in a state-run hospital and waiting months to get into crowded under-staffed clinics who have only pills and apologies for you.
You get used to spending the holidays in the hospitals. You are forced to spend your twenties and thirties and forties fighting for a diagnosis and cure. You are all alone and not marriage material, given you cannot have more kids, you are not well, and instead of falling in love, having a family and realizing your potential given your finance and tech background, you are fighting to survive. You then become homeless as you are unable to work at times and your daughter is becoming a caretaker.
Imagine doctors telling you that the debilitating symptoms you are having from paralysis, starvation, a-fib, epilepsy, chronic vomiting, broken bones and so many more problems are “stress” induced. Imagine where you find the hope, faith and support to survive. For me, I was sick for over 20 years. Then one day, I was told “You have B.I.I.” I was so excited, which is odd to say, but I thought I had a cure. I was told by the surgeon that the implants I had were bad but the “New and Improved ones” were safe, and all I needed do was have one more surgery to take out the old implants and replace them. However, they needed another $24,000.
At that time, I was getting an inheritance and willing to do it, desperate to get my life back. So again, I paid the money and thought that the old rule you don’t put good money after bad did not apply here. Under surgery I went, and from the moment I woke up the hell I was in became a real life torture chamber. I was seizing and the pain was unbearable, I felt so sick and had to stay in the hospital. At the follow-up I said I felt terrible and he said I looked fine. That word, LOOK, what the fuck. I said how I felt, not how I looked, and at that moment I should have realized this doctor was not in the feeling business.
I started to notice my lymph nodes getting bigger and went to see hematology oncology, and they scheduled a biopsy of the lymph nodes. As lumps appeared in my breasts and other parts of my body, my breasts began swelling. I called the doctor as they began getting bigger and bigger and he joked “I got more than I paid for” and I was crushed. I was begging the doctors for help. The plastic surgeon kept saying I was fine, but the medical records showed a different story.
Then one day, I Googled the words “Breast Implant Illness” and found a support group online. That moment changed my life forever. I went into a chat room and asked a woman who did her replacement if she had any symptoms afterward. She was a bit aggressive and said “WAHT DO YOU MEAN REPLACE? BII patients get explants, biopsies and never get new implants!” I felt like a moron, as she also then notified me that the FDA was recalling many of the breast implants for causing a rare form of lymphoma!
I immediately sent my doctor a message and asked her what type of implants I had gotten. That is the moment where the cost really went up. I realized immediately I was at risk of losing more than money. These things I had in me were literally killing me.
Today, I sat down to get together all of the quotes for surgery options and treatment, as well as all of the surgeries I have had since my new implants. I have had neck surgery to remove lymph nodes, TWO hip replacements, a broken arm, ear surgery to remove mass and repair my hearing, Hospitalization for GI bleeds, hospitalization for new cardiac issues, hospitalizations for chronic infections and more. The truth is that I am still facing those costs. I have no idea how much they will cost me financially, and I see that as only part of the cost.
What this really cost me was me. For all of the years that tuned into decades, I lost me. I was not able to work, parent, or be the friend, daughter, and partner I could have been. I lost faith in the medical industry and the depression, pain, and loss I feel is a feeling I cannot calculate in terms of cost. Feeling hopeless, helpless, and unable to mentally and physically be who you know you are is a leveling feeling and a humility I wish on no person.
Knowing people think I knew this was the cost is the hardest part. As patients, we are fighting to protect women in the future and asking that the medical device companies tell women the ACTUAL COST and risk of implants.
What this disease has cost me as a woman, mother, friend, daughter, and CEO is not something I can put a number on. What it will not cost me is my life or my self-RESPECT as I learn the truth behind the cause of this disease.
If you or someone you love is feeling the effects of BII, please join our community and help us help others.