A first-person account from a patient describing health decline after receiving breast implants (fall 2011), subsequent medical missions to Africa and Ecuador, and severe illness (fall 2012) including parasites and immune suppression. The speaker connects implant timing, travel-acquired infections, occupational stress (night-shift ICU), and trauma as contributors to deteriorating health and explains motivation for explant (implant removal).
Chapters
I wish I could be a little bit more of a boring patient, but I'll kind of, like, back it up because I think that's what resonates with a lot of people and kind of why I chose to get an explant and kind of where I was at with my history and symptoms. And so I went to tcu. Nursing school, was just a typical nursing major. I had the opportunity to do some medical missions in Africa and Ecuador, abroad. Ended up getting really sick over there. You know, I got all the shots. I was taking all the malaria medication. I got parasites. I didn't know that at the time. So I ended up getting flown back to the States and just had all sorts of weird health issues. And this was fall of 2012, and I have to back up that. I got my implants fall of 2011. So it was definitely one of the contributing factors to suppressing my immune response. And then, of course, I got all the shots. I went to Africa. I got parasites. It was just the perfect storm. I was under a lot of stress, had some trauma in my life. And then I was working night shift, ICU in Austin, Texas, which was just, you know, cortisol bomb, really stressed, and my health just, like, totally plummeted. And it was one of those things where I was the healthy girl, you know?
