Much to the bewilderment of my friends, my family, and my soon-to-be-ex-husband, in August of 2014 I got a breast augmentation. One of my best friends, who happens to be a doctor, picked me up from the surgery. “What’s the point of having a gay doctor bestie if he can’t help you with your boob job?” he asked. I went home, took some Percocet, reclined upright, and waited for the perfection to set in. And it did. In 5 weeks I looked darn good. Skinny from my misery. Nice breasts from my wallet. My life may have been falling apart, but this? This was pretty good.That is, until one morning in early October when I sat up in bed and felt a sickening wet mucus sliding down my chest. It was everywhere, soaking my shirt and the sheets. My right implant was infected and the seams of the scar on my right breast had burst. I raced to my surgeon’s office. He shot me full of anaesthesia, deftly removed the entire implant, cleaned and packed the wound, and immediately sent me to an infectious disease doctor.I had a hole in my breast for 6 weeks while I blasted my body with antibiotics. I had the implant put back in. I had another infection and rupture on Christmas Eve. I had it taken out again. I had more cultures and tests and conversations with doctors than I care to recall.All of them came to the same conclusion: My surgeon was, and is, a superlative doctor and a conscientious practitioner. His work and operating theatre are immaculate. The problem wasn’t something anyone could have prevented or predicted — it was that I am allergic to implants. Plain and simple. My body did. Not. Want. Them. I kept trying to “fix” my body, and it kept telling me to leave it alone. I’ve since learned that breast implant complications and adverse outcomes, like the one I experienced, occur in at least 1% of breast implant patients in the U.S., according to the FDA.In April, after so much back and forth and so many pieces of gauze and soft bras and waiting to operate until the infections cleared up and not being able to use my arms properly, my surgeon looked at me and gently said, “I want you to have what you want. I want you to be happy. But the universe is talking to you. I think you should listen.”By this point, my marriage had completely tanked, it was all over the tabloids, and my mother had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and moved in with me for her treatment. It was time to move on and deal with my life. I said, “Enough of this. I have other things to worry about. Take them out. I’m done with this project.”The day of the final surgery arrived, and before I went under, I spent a few moments catching up with my surgeon. I told him I was getting a divorce and nervously joked, “New people are going to see these for the first time in years. You have to make them look good.” He smiled very kindly and said, “Don’t worry. You never needed me for that.”