PIP ladies club together to pay for their re-ops

We couldn't afford to replace our faulty PIP implants... so we clubbed together to raise the money




Brought together by fear, these victims came up with an inventive campaign to pay for urgent surgery

Still woozy from the ­anaesthetic, Wendy ­Williams flinched as she
lifted her head from the pillow and tried to focus on the ­bandages
around her chest.
Her body felt tight and sore. But as she lay back down, she felt a sense of hope for the first time in many months.
Three
years earlier, aged 30, Wendy had undergone a traumatic hysterectomy.
Ever since, it had felt like her femininity had been removed with her
womb.
In a desperate bid to regain some of her lost ­confidence, she took the drastic step of having breast enlargement surgery.
Wendy hoped a 34DD bust would put her life back on track. She thought it would make her feel attractive.
But nine years on, she faces another ordeal, for Wendy is one of the ­thousands of women caught in the PIP implant scandal.
Worries
about the implants surfaced in December 2011, after French authorities
launched a major ­investigation into their safety.
They were found to contain industrial silicone rather than medical-grade fillers, making them more prone to rupture and leakage.
The Department of Health estimated up to 47,000 UK women were affected.
Wendy
was among them but instead of ­accepting her fate, she joined forces
with eight other ­affected women in a unique campaign.
Since then,
they’ve cuddled snakes, baked “booby buns” and auctioned paintings in a
bid to raise the money to replace the implants. And they’ve formed a
powerful bond.
“People often think boob jobs
are all about vanity but I had to have one after my ­hysterectomy left
me severely depressed and feeling unwomanly,” says Wendy, 42, from
Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
“At first I was ecstatic – my bust
looked ­amazing. My clothes fitted, I could go ­shopping and I loved
what I saw in the ­mirror.
"But when I got the pains and realised they were PIP implants, I was ­devastated. I just couldn’t believe that I was a victim.”
Wendy says she is in an even worse ­position now than before she had enlargement surgery, when she was a small 34AA.
“I would never have had cosmetic surgery if I had known what a terrible position I would be in today,” she reflects.
The divorced mother-of-two and part-time cleaner endures constant, terrible migraines, night sweats and great pain.
"And she ­believes that her implants – which she says have ruptured twice, the last time two years ago – are squarely to blame.
Wendy is not alone. Kerry Needham, the mother of Ben Needham, the
toddler who disappeared from the Greek Island of Kos during a holiday 21
years ago, also suffered.
After 12 years of depression,
struggling with the burden of not knowing if her son was alive or dead,
surgery was Kerry’s attempt to embrace life again.
“The stress
really took a terrible toll on my body and my confidence over the years.
I was terribly depressed and pretty much a wreck the whole time,” says
the 40-year-old mum from Sheffield.
“People might think women with ­implants just want to look like Barbie and should pay the price.
"But
that is so far from the truth for so many of us. It is often about
rebuilding your confidence after a life trauma or ­child-bearing or even
cancer.
“My new breasts helped me to cope and to keep going on with the Find Ben campaign.
"
I thought nothing could ever affect me again after he vanished. But
when I found out I had the PIP implants, I felt like I had been knocked
for six all over again.”
Petrified by the thought of what damage
they might be wreaking on her body, Kerry – like Wendy – went online,
looking for ­others going through the same thing.
They and seven other women found each other on a Facebook page for people worried about PIP implants.
All
nine of them – Wendy, 42, Kerry, 40, Antonia Mariconda, 34, ­Katrina
Allison, 45, Victoria Ashton, 34, Carol Robson, 63, Michelle Hitch, 41,
Rebecca Ashton, 33, and Susan Linley, 42 – shared their stories and
debated what steps to take next.
The NHS has agreed to remove all risky implants – and replace them for free if it had carried out the original surgery.
But
it would not replace implants if the surgery had been carried out at a
private clinic. It was expected the private sector would pick up the
bill.
But many women had their ­operations at clinics that had since closed.
And
they were frightened of what their bodies would look like if the
implants were taken out and they could not afford to replace them.
Suffering
from terrible headaches, ­swelling and constant pain, the group worried
where they would ever find the money to pay for the safe implants they
needed.
So the ladies began regularly messaging each other, offering support and a listening ear.
Gradually,
they became friends, and one day they began discussing the possibility
of setting up a charity to help women trapped in the same position they
were in.
It was then that they launched their ­campaign, PIPs Out! and began organising fundraising events to replace faulty implants.
Each needed around £2,200 for the procedure, so quickly the ladies pitched in with their thoughts.
One
suggested auctioning paintings on eBay, another wanted to bake
cupcakes. In doing so, the girls have individually raised £1,000 each.
Last
month, they held an I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!-style
fundraising event at a wildlife park – complete with grub-eating and
snake-stroking.
And at a beauty evening they sold Booby Buns – cupcakes with breasts as decorations – and raised £220.
A musical night featuring Kerry’s brother Danny as Elvis added another £220 to the pot.
They have now raised £11,000 and five of the girls are booked in for their operations later this month at a clinic in Preston.
They
plan to pay for the other four women’s operations by holding a
Glam-a-thon, where they’ll do a sponsored walk head to toe in glamorous
get-up.
Jeweller Katrina Allison, 45, from Rotherham, South
Yorkshire, was signed off sick from work for three months due to
depression caused by her implants.
But she claims getting involved in the ­PIPs Out! charity has been her lifeline.
“I
have been told my implants have probably ruptured,” she says. “I have
constant numbness, insomnia and headaches. The only thing keeping me
going has been the other women.
“They understand exactly what I’m
­going through and it really helps having a project we can work on
together. It makes me feel like I’m not alone in this.
“I have
done everything I can think of to raise money from selling my sunbed, to
making and auctioning off canvas paintings and I’ve had a lot of fun.”
Wendy
agrees wholeheartedly. “Finding the other ­women online has been
exactly what’s saved me,” she says. “The PIPs girls will be my lifelong
friends.”
Another group member, mum-of-two Susan Linley, from
Sheffield, was distraught when she discovered ­doctors had given her
dodgy PIP implants.
She’d had breast enlargement surgery after
losing weight following the birth of her two ­children. She went up from
a 32A to a 34DD.
“At first I was happy with them,” she says. “I didn’t seem to have
any major problems, just the odd shooting pain through each breast. But I
thought it was normal.
“It was only when the scandal broke in
December that I started to worry. When the clinic told me I had them, I
was in such shock that I just put the phone down and cried.
“I’d
been under the impression I’d been given Allergan implants, so I was
­devastated. I was told to get in touch with my doctor if I had any
problems, which I did.
“But they only agreed to remove, not
reconstruct them, which would have left me looking disfigured. I was
beside myself with panic.
"My GP shrugged and said that was all he could do. I just sat there in tears.”
The clinic where Susan had her breast surgery had ceased trading, leaving her in a truly desperate situation.
“If
it hadn’t been for the other girls at PIPs Out!, I’d have been on
antidepressants by now,” she says. “Their support has been absolutely
priceless.”
To raise the money for her ­removal and reconstruction
at another private clinic, Susan sold home-made dolls and heart-shaped
crafts on eBay.
Mum-of-four Rebecca Ashton, 33, from ­Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire, was just as desperate.
She was meant to be getting married this year to her partner of 18 years.
But their dream wedding had to be indefinitely postponed so she could save money to have her implants replaced.
“I’d
never had more than a 32A bust and had always dreamt of having a
womanly figure. So when I decided to have a boob job in 2007, I was over
the moon,” she says.
“The first sign of any problem was during Christmas last year.
"The
scandal had just broken and I’d recently noticed a weird ­rippling
effect across my skin. My boobs were looking misshapen and smaller. So I
panicked and got them checked out.”
Rebecca was told she had
PIPs, but to her distress her original surgeon had returned overseas and
the clinic now refused to help unless she paid another £3,700.
“I
was really heartbroken. I desperately wanted an MRI scan to see what
was going on but I couldn’t even afford the £400 for that,” she
explains.
“I was breaking down all the time so ­finding a support
network in the other girls – and simply having a safe and comforting
place to talk – has been my saviour.
“And now our operations are booked, I’ll sleep soundly for the first time in months.”


source HERE


I absolutely applaud each and every one of these women Well done to all them and I wish them all the very best for the future with their brand new boobs

What an amazing story. How these women are pulling together not only for themselves but to help each other is unbelievable. It's an absolute disgrace that these poor ladies are having to find the money themselves, it's disgusting, but it sounds like they're doing it the fun way, and good luck to them... Amazing x