Woman with cancer warns of rare breast implant risk

“I went back to the hospital and they drained 500 millilitres of fluid out of it,” Susan said.

“Then I went back home and it swelled up again.

“I went back again and they drained the same amount off – within a month, that was.”

Susan was referred to a surgeon, who discovered she had BIA-ALCL – a cancer of the immune system, not a type of breast cancer, that can develop in the scar tissue around breast implants.

“I didn’t believe it,” she said.

“I was in denial because I’d had my breasts off to stop me getting cancer and now I’ve got cancer.

“I thought, ‘How can that be?'”

The surgeon then told Susan the implant had to be removed.

“He said, ‘we’re going to have to take it out and take the breasts off again’,” she said.

“And they said I could never, ever have another implant.

“The only way around it is to take stuff from another part of my body and rebuild it.

“I just said to him, ‘I can’t go through that again’.”