Twenty-two years ago at the age of 19, Janelle got her first set of saline breast implants and she was ecstatic. Right on schedule, ten years later she had them replaced with silicone gel.
Janelle loved how she looked with breast implants, but in 2018 she began experiencing a collection of unusual symptoms including extreme fatigue, dry eyes, dry mouth, and other miserable things.
Suspecting that the breast implants might be the cause, she shared her symptoms on Instagram and received a flurry of messages from women with similar issues, leading to real conversations with others who had explanted. At this point, she knew immediately that the implants needed to come out.
Hear why Janelle chose Dr. Swistun before she even met him in person, and the dramatic difference she noticed in her body waking up from surgery.
Links
- Follow Janelle on Instagram
- Learn more about en bloc capsulectomy breast implant removal
Please request your free consultation online or call La Jolla Cosmetic, San Diego, at (858) 452-1981 for more
See Janelle’s before and after photos:
Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You’re listening to The La Jolla Cosmetic Podcast.
Monique Ramsey (00:15):
Everyone to The La Jolla Cosmetic Podcast. I’m your hostess, Monique Ramsey. Today my guest is Janelle. She’s a patient of Dr. Luke Swistun, and she recently had a bilateral capsulectomy and explant. In other words, she had her breast implants taken out. So when you get breast implants, I think the first thing they tell you is that they’re not forever. Everybody eventually has to have them replaced or remove it sometime in the future. So welcome, Janelle.
Janelle (00:42):
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Monique Ramsey (00:45):
So before we talk about why you wanted your breast implants taken out, let’s go back to the beginning and sort of when did you originally get your breast implants? Tell us kind of the beginning.
Janelle (00:56):
Sure. So I’ve had breast implants for 22 years. My first set of implants, I was 22 and they were saline. It was just something, as a young woman, I never really had any breast tissue that developed on my own. I was really thin. In high school, I was told I had a figure like a little boy. So there were all these things that led me into how do I look into having larger breasts. In San Diego, it was really popular at the time. I moved out here when I was 19. It was one of those things that I started noticing everywhere that I went, kind of like if you wanted a Tesla, you see Tesla’s everywhere. I was like, “Okay, I think this is something I want to look into.” I felt like I waited long enough to see if I could naturally develop and I just wasn’t one of those people that was well-endowed, so.
Monique Ramsey (01:48):
We talked about why you got them. Was it what you expected?
Janelle (01:52):
It was. At the time, I was ecstatic about it. Here I am. I walked in one version of myself and I walked out of there a different version of myself and I did feel more confident. I fit better into clothing. All of a sudden I wanted to show my body more. There’s a lot of things just as a young woman that I wanted to do that I didn’t have the confidence to do before I actually had bigger breasts. So for me at the time, it was the right decision and I felt really good moving forward about it.
Monique Ramsey (02:21):
So when you went to exchange your implants from saline to silicone, was there anything going on at that time or a reason why you changed them?
Janelle (02:30):
I wanted silicone because they felt a little bit more natural. I had friends at that time that were getting silicone that had never had implants before. Then of course, you and your best friends, you’re always like, “Let me see, let me touch.” So I was like, “Oh, I like the way yours feels so much better.” In addition to that, my implants had, I guess, they call it bottomed out. So they had dropped lower to where my nipple was then placed higher up and the implant was lower in my chest wall. So I did want to have them redone for that reason as well. So I had a gap in the center also and I think that’s just because I’m a thin person. So my body didn’t want to hang onto them in the position they were placed to begin with, so yeah.
Monique Ramsey (03:13):
Yeah. I heard something really interesting. So Dr. Lori Saltz, one of our surgeons, she was talking about saline and that that bottoming out tends to happen more because the saline’s moving all the time.
Janelle (03:24):
Right.
Monique Ramsey (03:25):
It’s sort of like that sloshing around is creating an effect that’s continually putting stress on the tissue and so the fact that they end up sort of in a different spot can be partly because of that. I’d never heard that before and I thought that was super interesting.
Janelle (03:39):
Interesting. I’ve actually never heard that as well.
Monique Ramsey (03:41):
Yeah, yeah. I was like, “Oh, okay.”
Janelle (03:42):
So interesting.
Monique Ramsey (03:44):
So when did things start to change with your health?
Janelle (03:49):
So interestingly enough, I started to notice more and more symptoms around 2018. Prior to that, I felt like I was experiencing symptoms but not putting a connection with the implants, because I think in my mind I just felt like, “Well, you’re supposed to have pain, you have something foreign in your body. This is normal. You’re supposed to have some type of discomfort.” Anytime you’re adding something that you weren’t originally packaged with to begin with as a human, you’re going to experience something, some type of side effect. It just is what it is.
Janelle (04:21):
But I don’t think I started to put two and two together until 2018 because I’m in the fitness industry. I’m a fitness instructor. I’m really healthy. I don’t take any medication whatsoever, not even birth control. I eat really clean. I take all the right supplements. I started to notice a huge decline in my energy level. I was fatigued more often. I was taking a lot of naps. My eyes were dry, my mouth was dry. I would change my diet, I would take things out, I would add things in, I would speak to homeopathic doctors, all these things.
Janelle (04:59):
I was trying to convince myself it was not related to my implants because I think the last thing I wanted to do was have to remove them. It’s something that became a part of who I was. So I was trying to figure out all these things that it could possibly be, and then even thinking so, “I think I work out too much. I think I exercised too much.” But it just started to get worse and worse and worse through the years. But I think 2018 is when I first started to really recognize something’s wrong with my body.
Monique Ramsey (05:30):
So then trying to feel better, like you mentioned, you’re trying to change your diet or talk to doctors, was there anything specific that some of the other doctors or homeopathic people had you do?
Janelle (05:43):
Nobody could come up with anything because I would do panels of blood work, everything was fine. I had nothing really definitively saying this is what it could be. It’s really hard with something like BII because there’s so many symptoms and they seem so vague. They could be attached to anything.
Monique Ramsey (06:01):
Right, right.
Janelle (06:01):
So it’s like how do you say this is what it is?
Monique Ramsey (06:05):
Right. How do you make that distinct correlation? What helped you make that connection? Then what process did you start doing? I’m assuming you started to do some research or talk to people.
Janelle (06:17):
I did start to do a lot of research. I talked to a lot of people. I went down a lot of rabbit holes. In addition to that, I would say over the last couple years I got really spiritual with myself and really grounded in who I am. I meditate a lot. I do a lot of activities that really allow me to get internal with my body. While I’m in meditation, I started to feel different things in my body that just led me to believe intuitively as a woman, just intuitively I knew what it was. It was like a brick just hit me one day. I woke up out of my meditation and I’m like, “It’s my implants.”
Monique Ramsey (06:55):
Wow.
Janelle (06:56):
It was so strange. It was like I got an answer in the middle of a meditation, as foo-foo as that sounds, that’s the truth.
Monique Ramsey (07:02):
Yeah, they say that’s why you should meditate. A lot of stuff can come to you creatively or whatever it is.
Janelle (07:09):
Absolutely.
Monique Ramsey (07:10):
So at that point then, like you say you went down a lot of rabbit holes. So where did you start to look for information?
Janelle (07:17):
I mean, I would Google. I got on Facebook, there’s a breast implant illness group that’s on there. You have to add yourself and tell them your story and then they invite you in. I met a lot of people through there. Actually, that’s how I found out about Swistun was on a Facebook page. So I also posted on my Instagram, which I have 10,000 followers. Doesn’t seem like a lot, but to me that’s a lot because they’re organic.
Monique Ramsey (07:40):
A lot.
Janelle (07:41):
I posted that I was considering getting my implants removed, and if anybody has any information, please contact me. So I started getting a lot of messages, contact me, numbers, and things like that. So just putting yourself out there. A lot of people want to kind of like not tell people what they’re going through. For me, I’ve always been an open book, like I said. So once I started to do research and put it on Instagram and people reach out to me, I started making those personal connections and having real conversations and finding that people were having the same problems as me post-explant. So I was like, “Oh my gosh.” Then I started getting all this information together and it just made so much sense. I immediately made four consultations the day after I had a strong meditation and answer.
Monique Ramsey (08:27):
Interesting. So right away you knew you had to take care of it. So you found Dr. Swistun through that Facebook group. Were the other doctors that you spoke with also from that same group of people?
Janelle (08:40):
They were. I had consultations on Zoom. I had a couple consultations before I even met Swistun. For some reason, you know when you just feel like something is the right direction to go without having have met Swistun, his name had come up so much through DMs on my Instagram and the Facebook page. I was like, “This is collectively a lot of humans that have been through him and had extraordinary experiences, so I want to make my consultation and set it up with him.” I actually put a deposit down before I even met him, which is even funnier.
Monique Ramsey (09:17):
Oh wow. So when you were going through this process in your mind of like, “Okay, I’m going to consider these different surgeons,” what kind of things were you looking for? Was it a checklist of clinical items or was it more of the feeling, or both?
Janelle (09:34):
Definitely both. I obviously want somebody that’s experienced. I like referrals because I trust people with their stories and things. For me, I know if I’m going to say I had an extraordinary experience and I love this doctor, it’s because I truly 100% do. So I had referrals. I looked into them. I read about him on his website. I love his story. In addition to the staff being amazing and coming in and just having all of the T’s crossed and the I’s dotted, when I met him, he was one of the most human doctors I have ever spoke to. So that’s something that I look for.
Janelle (10:16):
I don’t want to just be a patient that obviously I can get implants taken out anywhere. We kind of know that. Yes, there’s a difference with experience level in doctors obviously, but when I meet a doctor and I just feel like I have no anxiety, I feel at ease, I feel like I’m safe, and when he walked in the room, I felt immediately all those things. So it was just like all the pieces came together in that moment. I’m like, “This is the guy.”
Monique Ramsey (10:42):
Yeah. Now, from that time of that consultation to your surgery, how much time… Did you book it right away?
Janelle (10:50):
I booked it right away, but it happened fast. It was like seven weeks later.
Monique Ramsey (10:55):
Oh, wow.
Janelle (10:55):
Yeah. So once I met with him, I already had an appointment when I met with him. He didn’t even know that. I was like, “I’m already scheduled.” So just based off of a feeling, an internal feeling.
Monique Ramsey (11:05):
Oh wow.
Janelle (11:06):
So yeah.
Monique Ramsey (11:07):
How did you feel in the days or weeks leading up to the surgery?
Janelle (11:11):
Oh, I was excited. I couldn’t wait. It was like when you’re looking forward to that vacation and you’re just like, “Can the time move any slower?” I was just kind of like, “Can we speed this up and just get to the surgery?”
Monique Ramsey (11:23):
So right after the surgery, usually the doctor, you’ll be in recovery, did he come in and talk to you at all? Do you remember?
Janelle (11:30):
He did. Actually, when I came out of anesthesia, he was holding my hand and then I had one of the other nurses on the left side. So he was on my right. She was on my left. I felt like I was at home in my mom’s house with my family. It felt really good. I woke up and I took a deep breath. I believe Swistun told me, “Take a deep breath. How do you feel?” I felt so relieved. Even coming out of anesthesia where you’re partially conscious, partially unconscious, I felt different immediately. It was just a brand new me. It was better than walking out with implants when I was 22 years old. It was just such a huge awakening for me and a beautiful moment. Having them both on my side was even better, so.
Monique Ramsey (12:16):
I’m [inaudible 0:00:12:16] all tears.
Janelle (12:18):
I know.
Monique Ramsey (12:18):
Stop it. Stop it.
Janelle (12:18):
It was so good. I relive it in my head all the time and I’m like, “I want to go through that day again.” Not really, but there’s parts of me that when I woke up it was such a fantastic moment in my life. Memorable forever, so.
Monique Ramsey (12:30):
That’s so neat. So what did it feel like right after the surgery, the first 24 hours or the first few days?
Janelle (12:37):
It was so easy. I had my best friend fly down from Dallas and I had my husband taking care of me. The first day, I was kind of in and out of just sleeping. But I never had to take narcotics. I wasn’t in too much pain. I watched the sunset the first day that I came home from surgery. My best friend drove me down. I had drains in and everything. I was like, “I just want to watch the sunset because I feel like this is a whole new life for me and I want to watch the sunset on this first day of the rest of my life.”
Janelle (13:05):
Honestly, I was up walking around as much as was Swistun’s like, “Do not move your arms and do not do these things.” He’s like, “Stop talking with your hands.” I was like, “That’s the Italian in me.” But it was such an easy recovery. I don’t know if I was one of the lucky ones or if this is like this for a lot of people. But just felt like I had a really, really rough workout and I’m used to that, so.
Monique Ramsey (13:29):
To help the audience picture-
Janelle (13:30):
Sure.
Monique Ramsey (13:32):
Okay. You go home. You talked about having drains. Is there a bra? Is there bandages? What does that look like?
Janelle (13:40):
Right. So when you leave, you are in a surgical bra. It’s not really tight. You have gauze where the drains are just to prevent anything from leaking or anything like that. The drains were connected to the bra. They were clipped to the bottom of the bra. So they’re not really mobile. They’re not floating around, moving around. You don’t have to worry about them. The most uncomfortable thing was the drains. It just because something is hanging out of your body. But it wasn’t really uncomfortable. The bra was not tight. I wasn’t bandaged. He recommended not be bandaged.
Janelle (14:12):
I appreciated that because I already came from a place where I had implants on my chest and I wasn’t able to fully inhale. So the fact that I got to do that now, I was like, “The last thing I want to do is be bandaged really tightly down.” I wasn’t really uncomfortable. You do have to sleep upright. So I think the most difficult part was the drains, obviously, and then sleeping upright because I’m a side sleeper. So I had to get really used to having a wedge under my legs and sitting upright like a 45 degree angle. But honestly, you’re so tired. Your body just went through some level of trauma, so you’re sleeping a lot anyways.
Monique Ramsey (14:48):
Right, right.
Janelle (14:49):
So having that wedge, we got this whole kit on Amazon, it was like some memory foam sleeping upright wedge thing. It was $99. I’m like, “This is the best $100 we’ve ever spent, so.”
Monique Ramsey (15:00):
That’s good. Really for a lot of surgeries that we do. We want people propped up, post up, even if it’s facial stuff because of swelling. Let’s get that link from you what you got and we’ll put it in the show notes for people because you never know when you’re going to need it. Those are the things that patients want to know, the surgical journey, but they also want to kind of know what things do I need or what, because there’s so much out there you’d rather get from, like you say, a personal recommendation like, “Hey, this really helped me.”
Janelle (15:32):
Yeah. I remember a patient that actually went through Swistun recommended to me to get a back scratcher, just a little wooden back scratcher with a little hand on it. I’m like, “A back scratcher?”. She’s like, “Trust me, because your range of motion is you’re not going to be able to reach up and over your back.” If nobody’s around to itch you. So that was one of the things that I loved. I’ve used something all the time.
Monique Ramsey (15:54):
Oh my gosh. That’s awesome. I think when patients or people who are thinking about this, when they do their research, they’ll learn about what’s called en bloc capsulectomy, which en bloc, it just means you’re taking out the whole capsule surrounding whatever is inside, no matter where it is in your body in one piece. So is that something that you wanted him to do?
Janelle (16:22):
I did. I didn’t want any scar tissue in there whatsoever. I just wanted everything out in one piece because I had so many symptoms. I’m like, “I don’t know if I have a silent rupture in there. I don’t know what’s going on. But I do know that I want everything taken out of my body. I want a clean chest cavity.” I knew that going into it. There are doctors that will actually try to convince you you don’t need that. I feel like it’s those doctors that maybe aren’t skilled in it. So they try to convince people they don’t need it. It’s not necessary that something bad is going to happen to you if you leave that scar tissue in there. But for me, I don’t want scar tissue in there that was formed from my implants. I just want everything out, so.
Monique Ramsey (17:01):
Right, right. I’ve actually been in surgery watching the doctors do this and a couple different times and it is unbelievably laborious.
Janelle (17:11):
Oh yeah.
Monique Ramsey (17:11):
It really is interesting to watch. We have some videos, I think, and some highlights on our Instagram, but it was really eye-opening to see. So I would think it takes more expertise and patience and dedication. What happens to the implants once they’re out of your body? Do they send them to a lab?
Janelle (17:29):
The capsule goes to lab I think just to make sure that there’s nothing cancerous or anything strange going on there. But the implants went home with me.
Monique Ramsey (17:40):
Oh, oh.
Janelle (17:41):
Yeah. I put them in the freezer and I put them on my knees or on my-
Monique Ramsey (17:46):
That’s so funny. So did they clean them off for you first, I assume?
Janelle (17:49):
Yes. They sterilize them. They put them in a little packet, like a sealed surgical little bag and they give them to you. Now my husband and I use them for our traps if we get sore or something. We just have fun with them.
Monique Ramsey (18:03):
The world’s most expensive ice pack.
Janelle (18:06):
Yes. Yeah, that’s right. They work really well.
Monique Ramsey (18:09):
Well, that’s interesting. So now when the capsules went to the lab, how long did that take to get those results back? What were the results?
Janelle (18:17):
I didn’t get contacted. I believe they contact you if they find something unusual. So mine seemed to be fine. So my capsules were also paper thin, which again, a really skilled, experienced surgeon needs to… I mean, that’s even more difficult having a paper thin capsule, so.
Monique Ramsey (18:35):
Yeah, it’s harder to remove all in one piece. Yeah. Well, you went to the right guy.
Janelle (18:40):
Yes, I did. Yes, I did.
Monique Ramsey (18:43):
So when did you start to feel better? You were saying in recovery, but was it really that immediate?
Janelle (18:48):
Yes. I woke up and I started to feel immediately different with my breathing. I could expand my rib cage fully. I mean, I would say within two, three days I no longer had dry eyes. I no longer had dry mouth. My lymphs on my neck were really swollen and that my face started to look really lean. A lot of swelling and inflammation and my body started to go down. So I always had watery thighs. Not really weird, but above my knee I never had that contour above your knee that normal people have. My legs automatically just shrink. My body got really small. It was strange. This happened within a week. It was just everything, all the inflammation started to just die down in my body.
Monique Ramsey (19:33):
Wow.
Janelle (19:34):
I used to take a nap every single day. I couldn’t go through the day without sleeping. So I would teach in the morning, sleep all day, teach at night, and that was my life for years. So everything has changed for me. Some things happened immediately and a lot of other things happened over the last month or two. So it’s been almost three months, yeah.
Monique Ramsey (19:51):
Oh, so three months since your surgery?
Janelle (19:53):
Yeah.
Monique Ramsey (19:53):
Okay. So not very long.
Janelle (19:55):
Not very long.
Monique Ramsey (19:56):
Were you worried about what you would look like afterwards?
Janelle (20:01):
I was prepared for it.
Monique Ramsey (20:03):
Okay, okay.
Janelle (20:04):
I knew what it would look like, and I also was really okay with it. I knew that I was going to end up with really small breasts. I didn’t realize that I had any breast tissue. So I’m actually pleasantly surprised that I’m kind of on the cusp of a small B.
Monique Ramsey (20:20):
Oh wow. Okay.
Janelle (20:22):
I knew that it wasn’t going to be pretty right away. Your breast pockets are now empty, so the skin is loose. That first week is really hard to see yourself in the mirror after you’ve had these beautiful breasts for forever. You have to go into it with such a high level of self love that your well being is more important than anything.
Monique Ramsey (20:46):
I’m assuming at your consultation with Dr. Swistun, or at your pre-op or something, that they showed you some other patients going through the same thing. So you sort of were able to visualize, and maybe the Facebook groups too?
Janelle (21:02):
The Facebook groups, I had a lot of people send me photos. They would just block out their nipples, put a little circle over it. Yes, that first two week period as the peck is trying to reattach to the ribcage and everything is trying to restructure in your body, of course it’s going to not be the prettiest thing ever, but you just have to give yourself grace, allow that healing period and trust the process. I take a picture every single week and the progress of my breasts every week is… I’m happy now. So in two weeks I’m going to be even happier. I know that. So it’s just kind of that slow progress of they look better every week.
Monique Ramsey (21:40):
What did he tell you in terms of how long does that healing process go?
Janelle (21:45):
It could be six months to a year. Obviously people heal different. I feel like if they stayed where they are right now two and a half months later, I’d be stoked. That’s how happy I am with the results. I’m already in bikinis. I’m already wearing low cut shirts. I’m not unhappy with how they are now. So in six months I’m like, “If they’re going to get better and better, this is amazing.”
Monique Ramsey (22:05):
Yeah, yeah. Well, exactly. So when were you allowed to go back to work, ie. workout?
Janelle (22:12):
Yeah, I went back a month after. I was teaching from the floor. I’m a cycling instructor, so I had people ride the bike for me on the podium so that they can demonstrate for the class, like a demo rider. So from the day of my surgery six weeks later, I got on the bike and I would ride intermittently. I’d get on and off and just feel my body out. I would get sore. Obviously my pecs were sore and I would do a lot of massaging at night. That’s another thing, the massaging, you have to do it every single day.
Monique Ramsey (22:41):
Oh really? Oh really?
Janelle (22:42):
Oh, every single day over the scar, the incisions, and even the breast tissue itself. So you have to help the collagen kind of reboot but-
Monique Ramsey (22:50):
Does that hurt when you’re doing it?
Janelle (22:52):
It was uncomfortable at first, because the incisions are… There’s a little pain there associated with where you were cut into, obviously, and then numbness. So it’s kind of a strange feeling because you have pain, but then numbness in some areas. But your rib cage is really tender, especially under where the old inframammary fold is. That was the last thing to stop being sore, strangely.
Monique Ramsey (23:16):
So a lot of people when they’ve gotten their implants put in was that inframammary fold, so right in the crease of your breasts. Is that where your original incision was? Or was it around when you had the areola when you had silicone ones put in?
Janelle (23:29):
The areola, yeah, yeah. I went through the nipple on for the implant.
Monique Ramsey (23:33):
Yeah. Then when they took them out for the explant, it was underneath the breast.
Janelle (23:37):
Right. It’s like a-
Monique Ramsey (23:38):
You had a new scar.
Janelle (23:39):
Three and a half inch. Yes. Yeah. That’s lightened up. It’s almost skin tone. It does get a little more flushed after exercising, but then it turns more skin tone again. So again, 10 weeks later, the incision is really clean, tiny fine line where your inframammary fold is. So it almost looks like a shadow. It’s aesthetically kind of appealing because you’re like, “Oh, like a little shadow there. It’s not that bad.”
Monique Ramsey (24:05):
Well, and that scars mature over by a year. Yeah. Now, was there anything that surprised you about the process that you weren’t expecting?
Janelle (24:17):
I think seeing my breast for the first time was… You have that moment as a woman, for me, I stood in front of the mirror with my bra hanging off open and the gauze was removed and the drains were there and your breast looked so flat and depleted and loose skin and everything and I had that moment. I just looked and I cried at myself in the mirror because it was such a change, but I was so happy. I was crying for two reasons, embracing my body for this point forward and just saying, “Oh my gosh, this is a whole new journey,” and all those things and really, really loving yourself in such a phenomenal way. I mean, I would never take that moment back. I think if anything surprised me in this whole journey, not to pat myself on the back, but it was how well I processed the whole thing. It surprised me how well I took care of myself in the whole journey mentally.
Monique Ramsey (25:14):
Yeah. Well, I think that’s a huge point. As human beings, when life events happen, a lot of times it’s hard to rise to the occasion. But most of the time we do.
Janelle (25:26):
Yes, we do.
Monique Ramsey (25:27):
Yeah. Most of the time we are stronger than we think we ever could be.
Janelle (25:30):
Yeah.
Monique Ramsey (25:31):
So that’s really wonderful that you were at peace with all of it. So getting back, because I could think that, especially with this topic, because there’s so much sort of controversy surrounding breast implant illness, and there’s probably a lot of misinformation out there. When you go into some of these massive social media groups on Facebook, some things can be great, but other things might not be so great. What advice do you have for people about the information that’s being shared in these groups?
Janelle (26:04):
Well, first of all, I think the groups are really positive. I think they are there to help people who are feeling symptoms or not understanding their body and have a lot of questions. So I do think there’s not a lot of misinformation. I feel like there’s really good information. There’s a lot of links that they drop and things like that. I think it’s the best way to enter into a space where you feel safe. You’re with like-minded individuals, most of which have already been through the process.
Janelle (26:31):
The best way to start the process, to start the journey if you’re considering explant, if you’re even questioning it, there’s a reason you’re questioning it. I feel like our bodies tell us things before our minds do. So if your body is starting to experience things and you don’t really have answers, I think it’s good to go down a deep dive and just kind of rule out different things. It may not be implant related, but at least you can start to figure it out for yourself.
Monique Ramsey (26:57):
Right. Now, what advice would you give to somebody who’s thinking about an explantation?
Janelle (27:03):
I would say fully, wholly love yourself before you go into that and be prepared for it. Give yourself a lot of grace as you’re going through the healing stages because it does take time. It’s such a beautiful process if you let it be that. I mean, it really is. There’s so many things we do as humans that allows us to elevate and become a higher version of ourselves. So it’s one of those things where you’re going to be okay, you’re going to be healthy, you’re going to learn to love your body. I mean, I think the hardest thing is trying to dress myself because a lot of things don’t fit me the same. But if that’s the worst case scenario for me, I’m doing fine. So you will get strong again. You will look amazing. Small boobs are just as fine as big breasts, so.
Monique Ramsey (27:49):
Yeah. Now, what advice would you give to somebody who’s listening about how to look for a surgeon?
Janelle (27:59):
A doctor that will look you in the eye and you feel like you are more than a patient, you are in good hands, you are safe. The conversations you have with the people from the minute you walk in the door, for me, I would look for somebody that you feel excited to go through this journey with and they’re just as excited for you.
Monique Ramsey (28:18):
Now, how did you feel about the nursing team around you?
Janelle (28:22):
Oh, they’re so supportive. They’re so sweet. I feel like they’re friends of mine now. No, they’re there as part of your journey. They’re there with you.
Monique Ramsey (28:31):
I love hearing that because I think most of us who work at the center, we do feel like a family. We call it a work family. Having those connections with each other as coworkers, but then with our patients and seeing them go through it, it’s exciting for us. It’s a very joyful work environment because you’re making a big positive difference in people’s lives. So I love hearing that that translates, as the patient that you’re feeling that same family vibe. So is there anything that we kind of haven’t covered today that you might want to mention or-
Janelle (29:10):
This whole journey has completely changed who I am. I feel joyous. I feel like I’m remembering names and things in my life. My overall quality of life has improved in 10 weeks and it’s outrageous to me. So I wouldn’t have changed this for the world. This was the right decision for me.
Monique Ramsey (29:31):
That’s beautiful. I love that. So thank you for sharing your story.
Janelle (29:35):
Of course.
Monique Ramsey (29:37):
It’s been a wonderful hour that we’ve spent together.
Janelle (29:39):
I know. I love it.
Monique Ramsey (29:40):
I’m like, “Oh gosh, I wish I could come hug you.”
Janelle (29:42):
I know. Or grab coffee or something. Yeah.
Monique Ramsey (29:46):
Yeah. So that’s wonderful. Well, we’ll get that link in our show notes of the wedge. Then I would love to share if you’ll share with us some maybe before and after photos of you in a swimsuit or just in your regular clothes-
Janelle (29:59):
Of course.
Monique Ramsey (30:00):
And kind of showing the new you on your new journey.
Janelle (30:03):
Yeah.
Monique Ramsey (30:05):
So for the audience today, if you’re listening, you have any questions or want information about scheduling or financing or reviews or before and after photos, check our show notes. We’ll have all those links in there. Then we want to ask you for a special favor. If you love our podcast and if you’ve learned something from it, if it’s helped you make a decision, tell your friends, share it with your friends, and write a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Goodpods, wherever you’re listening.
Monique Ramsey (30:30):
So we love reviews. If you look on our website, it’s all about reviews. We want transparency and people to be able to read about each procedure and each doctor. So for our podcast, we want the same thing. If you have topic suggestions, let us know. So thanks again, Janelle. It was wonderful.
Janelle (30:48):
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Peace and love and all the things good, you guys.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Take a screenshot of this podcast episode with your phone and show it at your consultation or appointment or mention the promo code PODCAST to receive $25 off any service or product of $50 or more at La Jolla Cosmetic. La Jolla Cosmetic is located just off the I-5 San Diego Freeway in the Ximed Building on the Scripps Memorial Hospital Campus. Learn more, go to ljcsc.com or follow the team on Instagram @ljcsc. The La Jolla Cosmetic Podcast is a production of The Axis.
