Fasten Your Seatbelts: A Flight Attendant's Adventures 36,000 Feet and Below (20 page)

t the age of 13, I said to my mom, “All my friends are wearing a bra but me.” She bought me one, a training bra, but there really wasn’t anything to train. I went through high school wearing padded bras, but one incident really stood out where I wore a halter top with no bra. A boy said to me, “A half an egg is bigger than you.” I laughed, but I was humiliated.

At 21, I decided I was tired of being flat chested. I had done a couple of queen pageants, (one modeling a swimsuit) but I wanted to feel more feminine. I made an appointment with a female plastic surgeon, who agreed I could use some help. I was a double A cup. (For those men out there who don’t know what that is, it’s the smallest size you can be.) Because I was so thin, she recommended I only go up one size to a B cup. That was fine with me and we went ahead with the silicone implants. I had to keep the bandages on for six weeks. When I took them off, I couldn’t believe it. Voila! Breasts! I loved
them. Because they were only a B cup, they looked and felt completely natural.

I was married at the age of 33. Those implants had been in for twelve years by that time. (Studies now show that ten years may be the life expectancy of the implants.) When we were first married, I was very active. We used to take trips to New England for the fall season. As we were walking along the rapids, I said to Daryl, “Let’s see who can hit that big rock over there first.” We took turns taking pebbles and throwing them at our target. My throws traveled just as far as his and we enjoyed the mild competition. About two years later, we took that same trip and again played the target game. To my surprise my throws were weak and short, traveling only a few yards. My husband looked at me and said jokingly, “Hey you’re throwing like a girl.” My strength was zapped and I didn’t know why.

I also felt unexplainably tired at times; I could barely lift my arm. Everything I did seemed like such an effort.

My scalp was always itching. I told the dermatologist it felt as if the itching were inside my head, but she didn’t see anything abnormal. I was losing my hair. I asked my stylist, “Do you see anything that may be causing my hair to fall out by the root?” There was a visible white clump attached to some strands of hair that fell from my head. She saw nothing.

A rash appeared on the side of my face that wouldn’t go away. The dermatologist gave me a glycolic peel and was alarmed at the reaction of the rash. It was bright red. She didn’t recognize it and could not diagnose it.

One day I was trying on clothes. I pulled my shirt above my head and felt a horrible pain shoot down my back. I thought I must have pulled a muscle. The pain lingered. Lumps started to form on my shoulders and neck, first on the right side and then eventually migrating to the left. My husband joked that I looked a bit like a body builder. The lumps burned and were painful. I constantly massaged them trying to eliminate the bulges and pain.

Then, I began to experience problems swallowing my food. The episodes came sporadically. Food would get caught in my esophagus, causing awful pain. Drinking liquids during the episodes only made it worse. Once, while I was working first class it happened yet again. I was jumping up and down on one leg and pounding on my chest. I must have looked not only ridiculous but scary, because at that moment the captain came out of the cockpit to use the lavatory. He was so alarmed he asked if he should make an emergency landing. I said that would not be necessary and tried to force myself to regurgitate the lodged piece of food. Even if I did throw up the food, the pain continued for a short time. Only until everything had
completely settled in my stomach would the pain and spasms go away. I went to a gastroenterologist. He did an endoscopy and to my surprise found nothing wrong.

The most tragic thing of all was losing the use of my hands. I was buttoning my blouse when a twinge of pain soared between my thumb and forefinger on my right hand. It felt as if I had split a tendon. I couldn’t shake hands with anyone because the pain was so bad. I had to be careful putting on my flight attendant jumpseat harness because it would cause shooting pain down my arms and hands. I thought the pain eventually would go away, but it only transferred to my fingers and the back of my hand. It eventually migrated to my left hand. I was 36 years old at the time, but felt like I was 90.

I was making cookies and cupcakes for the Fourth of July and could barely frost them due to the intense pain. If I carried anything for a period of time, my hands would stay frozen in that position temporarily, causing more pain and muscle cramping. After hanging up the phone, my hand looked similar to a claw and they were always cold.

I knew flight attendants were known for getting carpal tunnel syndrome, which would explain the hand pain. I knew stress could cause lumps in your neck and shoulder area. I knew choking on your food could be a hereditary hiatal hernia. My burning and itching scalp could be a skin disorder, as well
as my rash. I couldn’t explain my loss of energy, though. Why was my strength zapped from me? I was still young. It got to the point where my neck would barely move to the left. I continued massaging and massaging, trying to ease the burning bulges. My family said they saw me fading away and there was nothing they could do about it. I looked like death.

On one particular flight after all the passengers had deplaned, I noticed a magazine on one of the seats. The headline read, “Are your implants making you sick?” I read the article with great enthusiasm and hope. It finally dawned on me. All of those women who won lawsuits for autoimmune disorders and other health issues were legitimate. I guess I had believed the doctors who said no correlation existed.

I immediately called the surgeon who was mentioned in the article. She suspected I was in the advanced stages and recommended immediate removal. I had the silicone implants in for sixteen years. I loved them as they were part of me. The thought of going back to an A cup wasn’t too appealing, but my doctor said my body would need to heal before replacing them.

The surgery was a success, and the silicone implants had indeed both ruptured — one of them grotesquely. All I had to do was gently squeeze the implant and silicone would ooze out. Every time I laid down on my stomach, it seeped out and into my body. Each time someone gave me a hug, more and
more leaked out. Once ruptured, almost every move I made advanced the symptoms. It was having a devastating effect on my body!

During those sixteen years, I gained a little weight and could not tell a difference in my breast size. I was told when silicone travels through your body, it has a hard time naturally being eliminated since it is a foreign substance. It is common to gravitate to the extremities causing a silicate to form. I immediately went on a detoxification regimen and strict diet to purge the toxins. I would say 85 percent of the pain is gone. My energy has returned and I am somewhat back to normal. Some lingering hand pain still occurs, but the lumps in my shoulders have diminished and I no longer experience searing pain up and down my nerves.

I share my story with everyone I can in case they may have or may know someone who has silicone implants. Of course, flight attendants are notorious for having implants. I received a call from one who remembered my story years ago. She experienced nearly identical symptoms and was electing to have her implants removed and wanted to know all about the procedure.

I have talked to a flight attendant about her scarred hand from surgery due to silicone poisoning. Another flight attendant showed me her bulging knuckles. And another said she has tumors located around her uterus due to her ruptured implants.

The surgeon who removed my implants said there have been many babies born with severe birth defects related to silicone poisoning. Maybe it was a blessing for me and my husband not to have had children.

My doctor asked if I would be willing to be part of a segment on Fox News about surviving silicone rupture and the risk of silicone poisoning. The segment was actually about the controversy of the new silicone implant. I showed my ruptured implant with the silicone oozing out on TV. It is a sticky substance that looks and feels like adhesive glue. It took me a while to scrub it off my hands. I showed a hairball from my brush where my hair would fall out from the root. Several people I knew saw the segment. Sure enough, a flight attendant called to talk about her implants. That made it all worthwhile.

I am not condemning implants by any means. I just want to make sure that if anyone else is experiencing unexplained health issues and has a history of implant surgery there may be a correlation and they should be aware. The girl who shared her story in that magazine article, I believe, saved my life. I hope I can help someone in a similar way.

ave you ever been thinking about someone whom you haven’t seen in a long time and then you run into them? Have you ever had a dream and it came true? Have you ever had something happen to you that you couldn’t explain? Coincidences? I don’t think so but here are just a few of mine.

I once had a dream that transpired within days. In my dream, I was at an airport watching the planes take off and land. I observed one particular airplane takeoff and a few minutes later I yelled, “It’s coming back. Something is wrong with the airplane.” I woke up with a jolt.

Later that same week, my parents and I were going on vacation to Maui. I called Aloha Airlines to reserve the tickets.

The operator said, “You’re a flight attendant, right?”

I said, “Yes.”

“Something is going on here at the airport; a plane had to turn around and is coming back for an emergency landing.”

I was amazed because that is exactly what I dreamt. An airplane suffered structural fatigue. The fuselage of the airplane literally opened up like a tin can. Tragically, a flight attendant was sucked out of the aircraft and disappeared.

I was working an Airbus A-300 trip. Again, that is one of our largest aircraft. I was sitting on the jumpseat and for some reason visualized an aborted takeoff and my head slamming against the headrest. Ten seconds later, the pilot revved up the engines for takeoff. Halfway down the runway a warning indicator light went on in the cockpit. The captain slammed on the brakes and my head whiplashed against the jumpseat. I was stunned! I have taken off thousands and thousands of times and it is extremely rare to have an aborted takeoff.