Today is my 1 year anniversary of explantation!

MY ONE YEAR EXPLANT ANNIVERSARY IS TODAY!
I have come so far from that day.. 1 year ago.

I will be happy today and celebrate that I got my implants out and am regaining my health.

1 year ago today I was a scared little girl in a 26-year old's body. My memory was gone, I was dizzy and tired all the time, had aches and pains.. and had no idea that the 5 months POST explant would be the worst for me.. having a sezuire and being in a coma.. being hospitalized 2x for being so bad and scared.

Things looked up 8 months post explant and have gotten better every day since then.

Today I am an informed, strong 27-year old woman - with a new body and a better outlook. I have gone through hell and back and survived. Thanks for supporting me and my website www.myimplantstory.com - and helping inform other women so that they either make the smart choice to not get implants, or to remove them to regain their health.

Happy explant anniversary to me :)

Love,
Gretchen

Krista in NY Times

Click the link below to read an article in the NY Times from 01.17.08 - last week. My friend Krista - whom I met on the Saline Support site, is featured in the article. My 2nd explant surgeon, Dr. Susan Kolb, from GA - is also quoted in the article. Thank you!

New York Times Article

"Breast Implants: From Hell to Healing"

Click the image below to learn about the book I just finished. A book written by another sick woman, Donna Townes & publishes in 1997. Hopefully this is something I can do one day soon - in order to spread the word and also help other sick women find hope & answers. I got chills & tears in my eyes as I read page 57 - it sounded like she was writing about ME...about my memory loss, brain fog, and dream-like trance state that I was in for so long. It felt terrible to know someone else felt so impaired - but gave me a sense of relief that someone else understands. I would like to talk to Donna..There is no contact info for Donna on her book, except for a P.O. Box from '97. I will try writing her - but if you know of her, please let me know. Maybe my website will reach her somehow.

"It is as if I were disembodied. I do not see as me. I do not hear as me. I do not feel as me. I AM NOT REAL ANYMORE.
This body moves, but I am not real. Perhaps the closest thing I can compare this state of being to in my life experience is when I was drugged after surgery and was allergic to the medication. I am somewhere out there, not real, not me; but, in the waves of autonomic dysfunction, I know that it is my body that is trying to die, and I fight to live.
A strange aura envelopes me. Perhaps it is like epilectics experience immediately prior to a grand mal seizure, but mind is unending. My ears ring..I rage against this horror!
To be out of control is unacceptable. I could never be happy drinking alcohol because of the diminished capacity it causes. Perhaps this feeling in my brain is spaced out, or drugged, or high; but not drunk because to be that far out on alcohol would be impossible. I would be unconscious first!!
My months have run together and melted into a nightmare from which there seems to be no waking. Some days it seems that I may shake off the chains of darkness and walk in the light again, but not yet. I sink once more into the abyss."