Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 00:11:47 -0600

Hi!!!

This is my story. 

Marlene Miller

Vernal, UTAt 07:39 AM 7/25/2000 -0300, you wrote:

In the early 70'2 I was having pain in my breasts with my periods. My mother did not speak to me about female problems because she did not know anything about them, and being a good christian mother sex was never discussed either. 

I went to a doctor (Dr. McNamara) who referred me to another octor who told me that I had a few lumps and that I needed to have a mammography test done. I told him there was no cancer in my family on either side. I had the test done and was told a lump showed up on my right breast. 

My boyfriend who was a policeman wanted me to look into having implants as his friends wife had them put in and said they were wonderful. He went with me to Dr. Kelleher's office and we discussed having implants put in at the time of the biopsy for the lump that showed up. I also requested that Dr. McNamara be present for the biopsy part of the surgery. I was told that if there was no cancer then Dr. Kelleher would put in the implants. 

Surgery was scheduled May 5, 1975. I woke up to terrible indescribable pain. I was kept drugged for the next three days. I do not remember anything during that time. When I finally got undrugged I was told that both my breasts had been removed and implants put in a couple of days later and there was no cancer. Many years later my mother told me the doctor told her there had been no biopsy done, but that it was his decision to remove both my breasts because of fibrocystic masses. 

At this point I want to say that NEVER was I told that this might even be done. I had a great-aunt that had her right breast removed 30 some years before this for fibrocystic disease and she did not have cancer either. I had told Dr. Kelleher this and after I got my reports, which I had to call the medical board in Ohio to have them get them for me because this doctor refused to give them to me, I found that he described me as being cancerphobic in his reports. This is totally untrue! I was concerned as any 27 years old woman would be but definitely NOT cancerphobic!!! 

Six weeks after being sent home my left implanted breast was on fire. It also looked like the implant was coming through my incision. I returned to the doctors office and he started me on Keflax 500. He inserted a needle into my left breast and made me hold the tray that the tube attached to the needle drained into. I turned my head away from the smell and sight of the pus and blood draining into the tray. I almost vomited on the floor. He ignored my discomfort and finished and sent me home. 

A couple of weeks later I returned for a follow up visit and he told me that the implant needed to be removed because the infection was not going away. 

I went in for that surgery and was sent home with an open incision to clean several times everyday until the infection cleared. Several months later he put a new one in. 

By August of 1977 there was enough space in the sides of both implants that you could lay 2 fingers into it. They also looked like small round hard balls sitting up way too high on my chest and they most definitely did NOT look anything like breasts. I discussed this with Dr. Kelleher and he said he would remove them and put in a larger size that would match my body size better. 

September 1977 I had the surgery under general anesthesia. I started crying during the surgery because I could feel him and the other doctor cutting me. He asked me why I was crying and I told him I could feel them cutting me and he said no I couldn't, tell me who's cutting and I told him the left one is being cut then the right one, then the left one and so on. Then I was sent home where I passed out getting out of the car and was carried to bed where I stayed for a week. 

December 1977 I felt something scratching my bra when I took it off and noticed a small red spot under my left nipple and to the right a little. 

I touched something hard and small and saw something light blue sticking out of my skin. I pulled on it and a stitch that had several knots in it came out followed by a long string of sticky stuff. I took a picture of myself and sent it to Dr. Kelleher who wrote me back and told me to see Dr. Jarrett in Eugene, OR. I had moved from Ohio to Oregon in November. 

Several months later I got an appointment with Dr. Jarrett and he did a slide of the sticky substance and told me it was silicone and that I had been exposed and that I needed immediate surgery. Two days later he removed the left implant. Six months later he put in a saline implant. 

Dr. Jarrett told me that saline was a much better implant because it would not get hard from scar tissue like the right silicone implant was doing. He told me he could compress it and try to break up the scar tissue or inject me with something to make the scar tissue dissolve. He also told me that compressing it would be very painful and I told him I had been through ENOUGH pain! He did not do the compressing. 

On my next visit to his office I was worried because the incision did not look like it was healing right. I started to cry and I asked him if he could refer me to a doctor that could help me handle some of my depression that I was beginning to experience. He locked the doors and pinned me against the examination table and slid his hands down the inside of my half slip and panty hose that I was wearing and kissed me on the mouth and told me that I was beautiful and that I didn't need any help like that. I cried harder and put both my hands on his chest and pushed him away. He backed up, unlocked the door and apologized for his unprofessional behavior and left the room. I got dressed and never went back for anymore follow up visits. 

I moved to the state of Washington in 1983. I found a job working for corporate headquarters for Burlington Northern in Seattle. I had good insurance coverage so I looked for the best plastic surgeon I could find to help me get rid of the two hard balls that were causing me so much pain on my chest. 

Dr. Blue in Seattle examined me, laughed, took pictures of my chest and told me he was sending them to Dr. Jarrett because Dr. Jarrett had wrote a thesis on saline implants being so much better than silicone, because they did not harden like silicone, and I was PROOF that his theory was all washed up. He said there were new implants out now that would not get hard, would bond with my own tissue and that I would never need to have another surgery for as long as I lived. They were polyurethane coated implants and he was going to make me look like a Play Girl. 

I had the surgery in a hospital that was called Day Surgery, and was in the recovery room for hours. I could not wake up. I remember looking at the clock and thinking I had to wake up and get out of there, they were closing up and I had to go home. I vomited all the way home and into the next morning. On my first visit back to the doctor I pointed out to him that my left breast was lower that the right one. He said he could push it up and take a tuck in the skin and do it in his office. I decided NOT to do that. I also asked him about the lumps that I had felt on the outside of my silicone implant on the right side. He kissed me on the mouth and said there was no cancer found and I should stop worrying because everything was going to be fine now and then he walked out of the room. 

In 1986 I moved to Ohio to be close to my mother who had suffered several heart attacks. I found work managing a clothing store. I had management experience and I loved the work. Things started going terribly wrong for me. In Seattle I started developing back and head pain that I saw several doctors for and had several treatments for but nothing had helped me and I didn't want to waste the insurance companies money on treatments that did nothing for me. I always prided myself on my memory and now I was forgetting things that I had just done that day. I could not concentrate for any length of time. For the first time in my life I was late to work because I couldn't remember when I was supposed to be there or even what day it was. I walked out on that job six weeks later. 

I went to work for the State of Ohio Library driving a bookmobile. I loved this job. I had developed a cough that made me vomit mucus. My bladder also voided when I coughed. My back pain was unbearable and I was fatigued all the time. I quit this wonderful job after only a year because I did not have access to bathrooms when I needed them. 

I started working for my home town newspaper in classified ads. Then I advanced to retail selling. I had several small neighboring towns to drive to daily to get ads from. I started falling asleep in the middle of the day while driving. I saw an ear, nose, and throat specialist thinking I had a sinus infection that was making me vomit and fatigued. 

He examined me and told me I had silicone poisoning. He said one of my implants was broke. I argued with him telling him there was no way that could be true because of the type of implants I had. He told me that he would have to treat me with antibiotics for several weeks to clear up the infection before he could even do the surgery to remove the implants. I told him I wanted the implants after the surgery. He told me he used silicone implants and that was what he was going to place in me, unless, my skin was so thin after so many surgeries that it would not hold implants. Then he would just leave them out and I could decide if I wanted a tram flap surgery at a later date. 

Several months later I had the surgery and immediately after the swelling went down there was a huge indentation in the left implant. I went back to this doctor 3 times thinking that it was broken and he told me it was a wrinkle and even though it looked bad there was no rupture. 

I put 4 fingers into that indentation. It looked horrible!!! There was also NO WAY another doctor was ever going to touch me. I was going to be buried with those implants. 

I was wishing I could die because of all the pain that I was going through. It wasn't just the pain, it was the lost memory, the lack of affection and sex, the vomiting 3 and 4 times every night, falling asleep on the couch at six in the evening only to wake up every 2 to 3 hour all night long. This still goes on to this very day. 

In 1992 I was asked to do an interview with a local TV station on my implant surgeries. My hour and a half interview was cut to about 3 minutes. Two weeks later the plastic surgeon that did my first three surgeries was also interviewed and told everyone that he had never experienced any problems with any of the women he had implanted. The woman reporter called me and told me about Dr. Feng in Cleveland. By this time I was connecting my illnesses with my implants. I wanted to see a woman plastic surgeon. I had gone to Ann Arbor and talked to a male doctor who told me he would take my implants out in his office but that he could not put any more in me because my skin was so thin you could see through it. He also told me that he would just leave the skin hang there on my chest. I prayed that a woman would understand the horrible psychological effect this would have on me. I made my appointment to see Dr. Feng and I also was asked my her to see Dr. Richard Stein, a rheumatologist in Cleveland. Dr. Stein told me after examining me that he had seen hundreds of women from all over the country but that I was the first that he was reporting my illnesses were directly related to silicone poisoning. Dr. Feng understood my not wanting my skin to just hang on my chest and after explanting me did her very best to make me look the best that I could as a woman. She left my nipples because I was considering having a tram flap after I healed and was ready emotionally and physically. 

Six years later now my skin has adhered to my ribs and causes severe pain when I do any physical work involving using my arms. I have been to the emergency room only to be diagnosed with pleurisy and that pleurisy lasts for months at a time. I was desperately praying that after I was explanted I would begin to feel better. I have not. I have tried all the medications to stop the coughing and vomiting and when I do go a few days without vomiting I feel like I'm suffocating and then I eventually vomit the mucus and only then can I breathe again. I have spend thousands of dollars on doctors and hospital and prescriptions only to find out that I have chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, a 60% restricted right main artery in my heart that is mysterious because I do not have high cholesterol or any other blocks in my arteries, and I have very low blood pressure (I've been joked with about if I woke up that morning) and I need tests done on my lungs but there is no lung doctor in this town and I live 186 miles from Salt Lake City and the drive is way too far for me to make by myself, plus way too scary because I get lost easily and my husband and friend of the last 16 years is divorcing me this month, I have ruined his credit and he does not love me but only cares for me like a sister. 

Somehow I have to find a way to have this skin freed up from my ribs and the scar tissue that has grown between my ribs could attach itself to my lungs if I keep tearing it and making it grow. What kind of death will that be? Would an autopsy report say "cause of death unknown"? 

I will close by saying since there is still not enough honest clinical testing on the RIGHT patients, patients who have had broken, ruptured, long time implants (more than 5 years at the least) and there is no certifiable diseases that the pharmaceutical companies can make money from by developing medicine for these NO NAME illnesses that we women are experiencing other than drugs like Paxil, Prozac, etc., because these illnesses are all in our heads, we, the women of this world who have had implants will die as a generation of hopefully to be forgotten soon women by the government and the manufactures and the judges, lawyers and doctors who have had their bank accounts filled from our pain and suffering. 

My prayer every day and night is that YOU will not let this happen to all of us. Our lives are in your hands, your minds, your hearts, and your decisions.