My boyfriend paid for my breast implants, but I paid the price in more ways than one

• My boyfriend of four months offered to pay for my breast implants.
• I had breastfed my children and gained and lost a lot of weight, and my boobs were not the same.

After breastfeeding two children, gaining and losing the same 30 pounds over and over again, thanks to an unhappy marriage followed by a contentious divorce, socks with rocks described the appearance of my 36DD breasts and made me self-conscious when dating.

It wasn't the only area where I lacked self-confidence; it just seemed like the most manageable area to fix.

So when my boyfriend of four months offered to pay for me to get breast implants, I didn't stop to think about his motivation or what was involved. I said yes before he could change his mind.

I wanted him to love me

I would have done anything to feel loveable. And since this man had already professed his love for me, I would continue to do whatever it took to keep his love. Surgically altering my body was an easy decision compared to the things that would follow.

At my boyfriend's suggestion, we selected a surgeon who was his colleague and friend. Both men told me not to worry about the procedure or my health since I was, after all, healthy and selecting saline implants, not silicone. I blindly trusted both of them.

Never once did I question the impact the silicone shell of the implant might have on my body. Nor did I consider the need to have the implants replaced multiple times over my remaining life.

I ignored the need to heal my self-worth issues. Instead, I focused on doing whatever it took to keep the man who loved me and promised me a life of financial security.

My health deteriorated

Within a few years of receiving my implants, I began having health concerns: unexplained bleeding, weight gain, brain fog, and puffiness. I wrote them off as perimenopause or something associated with the stress of marriage and caregiving for my dying mother.

Eight months after my mom's death, I started experiencing more symptoms, including hands that hurt and could barely move in the morning. It wasn't happening every day, but often enough that I was worried and imagining the worst. I had convinced myself it was multiple sclerosis and would secretly spend hours researching natural remedies. Afraid to tell my husband that the woman he'd crafted into his perfect wife was anything but.

The number of symptoms I experienced continued to increase, and I could find nothing that connected them. This time I wrote them off as aging and stress associated with the end of my marriage, loss of financial security, and the subsequent death of my father. It was a lot for any person to cope with, so of course, my body was reacting, I told myself.

It would take three more years, two surgeries, numerous new unexplained symptoms, and a crushing diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis before I discovered a Facebook group that would save my life.

During two conversations with friends who knew of my health problems, they asked me if I had ever considered my implants as the cause. I hadn't, but listening to each share a story of other women they knew who had gone through something similar, I was encouraged for the first time. One of them mentioned a Facebook support group for people with breast implant illness; I asked for the link and promptly joined.

At that time, there were over 70,000 women in the group. They shared stories of symptoms like mine. More importantly, they shared hope of what happened to their bodies when they explanted.

My symptoms went away after the implants came out

Instead of preparing to live in a wheelchair, I was preparing for surgery. It was my last hope, and I clung to it with everything I had.

My breast implants came out a few months after joining the Facebook group. Two months later, on the first spring day, my rheumatology physician's assistant said there were zero signs of active disease in my body.

It's been four years now, and my Rheumatoid Arthritis continues to be in remission without medication. Explanting can't change the permanent damage my body suffered, but it gave me my life back.

The implants may have been free, but I paid the ultimate price for my health.