Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Explant Nightmare--Heidi Nichole's story Part 1
40 Plays1 year ago
Heidi Nichole's explant story is difficult and painful. She was able to overcome and heal thanks to Functional Medicine and divine help. No matter what you have gone through, there is always hope in healing.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Recap
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Breast and Plant Illness Hope for Healing. This is Cecily Henderson, your host. Thank you for joining me today. Last week's podcast was about integrative hope for healing and working with a willing medical community to create real protocols for breast and plant illness healing.
Guest Introduction: Heidi Nicole's Story
00:00:19
Speaker
Today, I have a very special guest on. Her name is Heidi Nicole. Good morning. Good morning, Heidi. Thank you for joining me. Heidi's going to be telling us about her horrendous explant story. It's just filled with almost movie quality things that have happened to her. And I want her to tell you the story because it can resonate with a lot of you. So
00:00:44
Speaker
Welcome, Heidi. Please start from the beginning. Let us know what
Choosing a Doctor and Initial Emotional State
00:00:50
Speaker
happened. I know you had a testosterone pellet that was implanted before surgery. Let us know how that was. So I chose this doctor because I wanted these out. It was the easiest option for me because of having no car, living in a motor home.
00:01:08
Speaker
Um, being in Austin, I needed to be able to get back and forth to this doctor. And because I'd heard the name twice, even though I didn't speak to the person that had used him.
00:01:19
Speaker
And the other person had not used him yet. I still went to this doctor. And they're real nice at first. They're really, really nice at first. Because they got to collect that check. Clean facility. Everybody's all pretty and perfect and put together in there, which is great. But sometimes people spend more time on the image of a place than they do on the actual heart of a place.
Unwanted Medical Procedures and Regret
00:01:46
Speaker
I would not recommend anybody go to this surgeon just because of how I was treated my first my first appointment my friend took me and Basically, I was a bawling mess. I'm gonna tell you right now everything went over my head I was not absorbing anything. He said at the time, but I knew that I needed to get these taken out and
00:02:10
Speaker
He told me, I never put this pellet. He says, I'm putting a hormone pellet in you today. You need one. My whole office staff has it, including me. And you need one of these. And I never do it the first day, but I'm doing this one the first day without taking blood work. Or sorry, he took blood work that day for my food allergy test and maybe something else. But
00:02:30
Speaker
It wasn't for my hormones or anything to figure out what was... I mean, yes, we know I'm going through BII, but he did not know what else was happening in my body with my thyroid nodule. Well, I ended up finding out Candida, not from him. And all the things that were actually going wrong with me, he didn't know.
Financial Strain and Lack of Care
00:02:50
Speaker
And he puts this hormone pellet, the same hormone pellet that goes in an older man,
00:02:56
Speaker
and every single person in your office that is of all different ages and sizes and you know everything and we're all different. So you're telling me you're putting a hormone. I wish my brain was functioning because ladies our brains are not functioning when these are in our bodies. I wish my brain was functioning to understand and tell him no but I kind of felt pushed into it and like I have to do what he says because he's a doctor right.
00:03:20
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of ladies feel that way. To the tune of $800 something dollars. And he wanted to try to convince me that I needed this every single month of my life for the rest of my life. To the tune of $800. He doesn't take insurance, by the way. So here I am crying that I am. He's basically clearing my count out of the $12,000 check that I needed to do to
00:03:46
Speaker
Apparently only get these things taken out of me and just have all my checkup surgeries. It wasn't to actual or check up appointments It wasn't actually for me to heal from BII He wasn't worried about that. He just we'll just get these things out of her and
00:04:00
Speaker
I'll just make sure she heals properly and then keep going as far as the surgery part goes.
Complications from Unnecessary Procedures
00:04:05
Speaker
I don't really know. Yeah, he wasn't thinking about your future, right? No. No. No. Because later on, when we took your testosterone, when you did your testosterone levels, they were actually very high. So it was bad that he put that hella thing. I'm so glad I was smart enough. I mean, well, I mean, one, I couldn't afford it either. But I was so glad I was smart enough to not listen.
00:04:25
Speaker
to everything a doctor says to me because I know to not listen to everything a doctor says to me and to make sure that I'm my own advocate. And then talking with you obviously helped me understand I probably didn't need it. So obviously I opted out and he said, oh, it's going to take two weeks for it to kick in. I don't know that it ever kicked in and helped me to be honest.
00:04:43
Speaker
So yeah, the hormone pellet was placed in the first time, made a surgery date for June 2nd. My two year date, ladies, you'll get there. You'll get there. My two year date is June 2nd, obviously in a couple of weeks. I'm so thrilled to be there. Sadly, yes, I still have to take some things. I'm still taking some things to get the migrated silicone out of my system.
00:05:05
Speaker
But I think, my roller coaster of up and downs, I think my downs are over, finally. I do believe I think my downs are over. And I will tell you, it took me a little bit longer. We have a mold situation that was in the place I was living. We'll get into that later. But I kind of think mine took a little bit longer than some of the women because of the other situation that I was going through.
Motivation for Advocacy
00:05:27
Speaker
But yeah, so that pellet implant, let's see, my second appointment was the draining, which we need to talk about, ladies. Don't let a doctor do this to you. Do not. Had my brain been functioning and had I thoroughly talked to Cecily about this or her been able to come and mom me and be my mom through all of this, if she left next door, she would not have let me do this and we would have gone to another doctor.
00:05:55
Speaker
Don't let a doctor drain your implants before to help you heal faster, because it's going to shrink your pockets. Because everything he did after that was to take longer for me to heal. And I'm not a fan of what he did to me. We have a friend in common that had the same implants I did. And she had black mold in hers. Now, I watched the fluid. He stuck a big numbing needle, stuck a big calcium needle in through my breast, into my implant.
00:06:24
Speaker
and was draining them because it's safe because they're saline. And I knew they were saline and he drained out the fluid. Now I watched that fluid come out and it looked clear, but who knows what kind of bacteria was floating in that.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, you don't know until you have a biopsy or you have a test. I didn't do any of those. No fluid test was done. I didn't pay him enough. Oh yeah, we found out that you used to work for a doctor that did those pellets, by the way, and they're what, $200 to $500 wholesale? So he was at minimum making $300 for a little five minute procedure to stick this hormone pellet in me that I did not need.
00:07:04
Speaker
That's ridiculous. I know you need to make money in a business, but only worried about the money is going to cause you to lose it. Because people are not going to continue to come back, and the word is going to get out, and you're going to continue to struggle, because that's all you're about is the greed
Explant Surgery and Advocacy Efforts
00:07:21
Speaker
and the money. You need to be about healing people. And that money will come to you. So anyway, so we'll get past that. But the draining, I did the draining.
00:07:31
Speaker
You know, I'm an emotional mess in there. I'm emotional. I will admit every bit of it. I was suicidal. I was an emotional mess. I did not want to live another day. I was so tired. You know, you had even told me two years it's going to take you to heal. I had no idea. I had my other friend that I worked with that had got him out. I was like, OK, I can pop back to work. And she was like, oh, Heidi, oh, Heidi, at minimum two months. And I was like, I'm going to miss two months of work. And ladies, my job is very physical.
00:07:59
Speaker
It's not sit at a desk in a computer or whatever. I am very physical. I have to be very strong for my job. So that's why I had to take, he told me three months and I ended up forcing it back at two and a half months, which I needed because I needed the exercise and the sweating and just to get out of where I was living because I was staying in this mold 24 hours a day now, you know? Anyway. Now he left, so he left the actual shell.
00:08:25
Speaker
inside of you for a month, not knowing if you had any biofilms, if you had any mold or mycotoxins. You don't know what was in your system until later when we did do testing with you. But I could not believe when you told me that he had left those in, I could not believe it. I was in shock.
00:08:47
Speaker
Dude, I am in shock now that my brain is functioning and I understand all of this even more. The more I've learned about breast implant illness and the healing and everything that we need to do, I am in shock that he is so smart and this amazing surgeon that he would even... And I kind of remember him having a little conversation out loud while I was there about... I think people were arguing with him about what he was doing.
00:09:13
Speaker
And he was trying to prove that he's come up with this new way. And he's so amazing for coming up with this new way. You aren't perfect. Nobody is. We can go on. We can go on from that. But well, just from an emotional standpoint, leaving those in and having, you know, having to experience that feeling that would be so emotionally detrimental. Yeah. And then, you know, and I mean, that's the whole reason that I created my
00:09:38
Speaker
My excellent courses is because of what you went through. I'll take the bad experience I have so that you guys can learn and not go through the same thing I did exactly why I'm being an advocate because I want to stop other women from doing this and
00:09:51
Speaker
Oh yeah. Last night I was working and a young woman saw my ad and she actually read it breast implants because she goes, hey, what are you? And I went through my whole spiel with her and told her about it all. And she was like, wow, I was thinking about getting those and you just told me not to. And I was like, yay. I was like, that's my whole point. I was like, thank you so much. I was like, girl,
00:10:15
Speaker
do not do it. It is not worth it. It is not worth the risk at all. And I was like, God made us perfectly. I was like, there's no reason to change it. I said, I don't even dye my hair anymore. I'm not plucking my eyebrows. I was like, if y'all don't like me, y'all don't like me. I don't really care. I was like, I like me. So that's all good. And so, and God loves me. So here we go. But she was, it was a really good experience last night. So good. And your pet, your petty cab driver. Yes. And you have this wonderful ad on the back of your bike. What does the ad say?
00:10:45
Speaker
It's time to get real, ladies. It's time to get real. It is my ad campaign that I came up with. It is now our ad campaign because obviously I've brought the right team members in this year. This is my second year for it. When I was recovering from my surgery, I sat there and I was so angry.
00:11:03
Speaker
about what I was going through, what I was missing from my life, how this stole the prime of my life, the prime of my life, how it stole my sex drive, how it sold my health, my happiness, how it stole my fertility and everything that it's stolen from me. And I didn't have to go through it. And I was so angry and I sat there and I was like, I have these two petty cabs. We're supposed to have ads on these petty cabs. I was like, I'm going to make an ad. And I already do Rosie the Riveter, so it morphed into all the things and kept morphing and kept morphing.
00:11:33
Speaker
This year I have the right correct people. We'll get into that later about putting the wrong people on the year before, but we'll get into that later. So anyway, yeah. So I came up with the ad campaign and here we go. Yay.
Post-Surgery Complications
00:11:44
Speaker
And so as you were, you know, because of your explant experience and how difficult it was, I think that's why you're advocating so hard, right? And all the things that you're doing. So tell us, tell us about your explant story.
00:12:00
Speaker
It's very rushed. I was there early and on time, all the things that I needed to be. He was there. One thing they did wrong was they rushed as they were getting ready to take me back to the surgery room. They're like, oh, do you want your implants?
00:12:14
Speaker
Well, at this time, I'm thinking they're deflated. So like, why would it matter? But I'm also just like, it's what 630 or something in the morning. I don't even remember what time it was early in the morning. It's last minute. I'm going to say now they should just always give them to you without asking because you never know if you're going to want them a year later. And now I wish I did have my specific implants even deflated to hold up in my photos. It's okay that I don't I'll get I'm over it. But
00:12:38
Speaker
How horrible to at the last minute, right? Or do you want your implants? Okay. And then run off. Just give them to me anyway. Don't even ask somebody, just give them. Cause they don't know if they want them till later. After the surgery, you know, they put you back in the post-op room.
00:12:54
Speaker
Not a single person from my surgeon's office was in there. Nobody that I was familiar with as they're waking me up. I had an immense amount of pressure and pain under my left side. Even though they had all of this pain medicine put in me and all of these things, it was so much pressure under this left side. And I was like, wow. I just remember telling the lady that I'd never met before, I was like, oh, wow, like really hurt. She was like, I know, I know.
00:13:22
Speaker
Whatever, but not a single doctor from my surgeon's office or nurse that I was familiar with to tell me how my surgery went, to tell me how long it was to anything just to check on me and send me on my way. It was just like, okay, get up. Your friend's here. And I was like, can I have my water?
00:13:41
Speaker
Big cut to the nurse that had nothing to do with doctor's office, but still had the, I was like, oh, can I, I need a drink of water, which of course you're thirsty, but.
00:13:52
Speaker
Um, anyway, so I got, I get my big water. I get home, get dumped off at home. I'm drinking. I'm trying to think about drinking a gallon of water a day because me, as physical as I am, I try, I thrive to try to drink a gallon of water a day. I probably get two liters down most days, but some days I do get a gallon, you know? So I'm thinking I got to drink this gallon of water.
00:14:13
Speaker
Um, he had told me to eat a lot of protein that was basically doing some massive protein shakes, two huge, you know, blenders full day, all this stuff. And then we can, we can contact him on this little app for their office. Right. And so that's what we talked to him on. They know I'm left by myself. They wanted me to have a person for four days and I'm left by myself. So if that, they should know these things, right? Yes, I can contact them.
00:14:37
Speaker
But there's no group or anybody for me to talk to of previous clients of his. There needs to be a group so I could say, hey, this is me checking in. This is going on. Like, yes, you can talk to them on that, but you kind of need this group so that you can talk to other people that have had this person as your surgeon. So I didn't have that. But when I did, I started taking pictures, which you'll get to pop up on the screen, but I started taking pictures of,
00:15:04
Speaker
amazingly how bloated I was. I could not believe how bloated I was. And I mean, I have a waist. I'm a person that has a waist and I had absolutely no waist. You'll see in these photos. Then I had all of this, like I asked him on my first appointment, I was like, why is that? I've started having a tic-tac-toe board over here and then like all this bruising. I knew that the fluid was going out of my body and I was peeing it out, of course. Right.
00:15:35
Speaker
He actually, you'll get to put this picture up too, he actually cut a bunch of pockets, all this extra knifing up in my muscles on my abdomen, which I'm a very physical person, so imagine how tough my muscles are. I have six to eight pack right now and I never do sit-ups because I've done them so much before and everything I do, it just maintains.
00:15:57
Speaker
knifed up all this extra area and under my boobs for a pocket for this fluid that should be leaving my body because it's toxic and needs to get out to sit until I go in for a draining, okay? And it's pressure. Let me just tell you how much more pain you're in because this fluid is sitting inside your body. There's all this pressure. And I mean, I can tell you that I know that that's true because once he would drain it, I would have this like relief.
00:16:26
Speaker
Because he did not, he didn't put drains in you, right? After your surgery, you did not have drains, which are very, very important for healing because it's so hard on your lymphatic system when they don't put the drains in. Isn't this funny?
00:16:42
Speaker
But yeah, I don't even know how important the, I mean, I know that it helped. I went and peed afterwards every single time. Maybe it helps me. You can say how important it, I don't, you know more about it. Yeah. Lymphatic drainage massage after surgery is very, very important to get rid of that fluid. So yeah, I, I did it myself, but yeah, I, I think I did three a week after the, my explant surgery for about six weeks, three a week. And I'm telling you it made such a huge difference.
Mold Exposure and Healing Journey
00:17:12
Speaker
Yeah. Well, uh, you know what? I would have had to have a lot of rides to the doctor. I don't, everything happened. How it whatever, you know, it would have been nice to be able to do that. Maybe I should have saved up for a rental car for them. Well, I still couldn't drive myself. It doesn't matter. So I wish well, and the nice thing is like with, um, with the X plant course, I talk about lymphatic drainage. There's things you can do yourself at home. You can do lymph, you can limp, do lymph drainage.
00:17:41
Speaker
Yeah. He didn't give me other options. Yeah, no. I mean, you know, doctors should be teaching you how to do this, but there are YouTube videos that you can go on and find out, okay, how do you do lymphatic drainage, massage, self-massage?
00:17:55
Speaker
Okay. Did he do any testing after your explant surgery? No. No. Um, I, well, okay. So a month after surgery, I finally rode on a bicycle for the first time because that was my only means of transportation other than having someone come get me. And I rode a bicycle and I was getting winded. I was having, I was like, wow, I've taken a month off of work before and I'm getting really winded. What is the deal? I told him about it.
00:18:23
Speaker
One other positive that he did is he said, I wanna test you for mold, which led me to finding out, of course he wanted to test me for mold because he was gonna make hundreds of dollars off of it, right?
00:18:36
Speaker
Um, so I, I think he did end up giving me charcoal pills or something that I ended up kind of taking at that time, but I ended up getting a cheap mold test for my, my place and did that. We discussed all of that stuff going on and I ended up getting that cheap, um, mold test. I knew it was there right when he said it, I figured it out that it was in the motor home.
00:18:57
Speaker
Um, and it was right at my pillow, you know, but the walls right here, here's my pillow. I would breathe them old for over two years straight every night. So that, that was my other, um, illness ladies. Cause, uh, so I had it a little more rough in that area, but I know there's some women that have a lot more rough things that I do. We're, we're all different. We're all, we're all, we all have this different thing, but there's some people that are in common that you gotta find to talk to, to help, you know, move you along.
00:19:20
Speaker
Absolutely. But yeah, so he did find out about the mold. But still, I had to pay for everything up front. And here I wasn't even working. So there was no way for me to get these tests, which did end up taking me a little while to get. But you know, Cecily is amazing and wants people to have these tests. And she's giving these tests at wholesale.
00:19:41
Speaker
at wholesale ladies. So I know that that first bite on that one or two tests that she's going to tell you to get, I know you're going to be like, and cringe. You definitely have things you would rather spend your money on, but you're not going to ever be able to spend your money on those things. If you don't spend your money on this and get healthier.
00:19:58
Speaker
So I now anytime Cecily tells me to take a test, I'm taking it and paying for it. I don't care paying the $75 for the blood draw. I don't care. After you find out that these tests that she gives you and then she gives you the supplements that you need to take and you start healing from that and you start, you're going to be like, okay, what test do you want me to take next? What test do you want me to take next? I will take it. What else can we fix? And then you're gonna be like, wow, I didn't know I could feel this amazing. You know,
00:20:23
Speaker
I didn't know I can function. I can function. I haven't functioned in 20 years or 15 at least, you know, like what 15 to 20 years I haven't been functioning. I was like, wow, I wasn't supposed to feel like
Empowerment and Gratitude in Recovery
00:20:34
Speaker
that. You don't even know you're not supposed to feel the way you're feeling. Heidi, I did not tell Heidi to say these things here.
00:20:42
Speaker
You're super sweet, Heidi. Thank you. You're building out way too much. You've done so much for yourself. I'm just really proud of you. With you and God. You're so sweet.