Valerie Bertinelli says she was “angry and scared” after facing “terrible” complications from breast implants.
In her newly released memoir, Getting Naked: The Quiet Work of Becoming Perfectly Imperfect, the One Day at a Time star explains that her troubles began after she had an accident and fell down the stairs at her home.
“I sprinted down the stairs and tripped, landing on my right chest. I heard a cracking sound. I knew exactly what happened,” she wrote.
As a result, the 65-year-old actress will undergo surgery to remove her breast implants after a plastic surgeon confirmed that they had ruptured during the fall.
“Six weeks later I had surgery and the doctor showed me the old implant. It looked like an ostrich egg, hard and scabbed over,” she continued.
“I couldn’t believe they were inside my body. I was bandaged and in pain and went home with a drain in my armpit. It was uncomfortable, but I was hopeful,” she said, adding that “everything was great” for “the first two weeks.”
“About a week later, my right breast turned shades of green, yellow, and blue. The next day it started to swell and turned a dark purple color. I felt dizzy. At night, I started having a fever.”
“I lay in bed thinking that was the best thing to do. I drank Tylenol and lots of water and tea. But when I woke up, the pain was intense. My chest was throbbing and my symptoms were getting worse and worse. I knew I had to see a doctor. But it was Saturday morning. By that time, I was feeling really sick. My breasts were discolored, sore and swollen. Fluid was leaking from the sutures. ”
During her second doctor’s visit, Bertinelli had to return to the operating table to have the infected implant removed again. That was just three and a half weeks after the first surgery.
“The second surgery required removing the infection from the implant and the tissue surrounding the muscle. Recovery took longer. After that, my breasts started to cave in on their own, which the doctors called craters,” explains Bertinelli.
“The description was accurate. Another appropriate word would have been gory. Really gory, like a horror movie. In fact, it was like a horror movie. I had a misshapen quarter-sized wound and a hole more than an inch deep where my nipple used to be. My nipple, or what was left of it, had literally lasted less than half its lifespan.”
Things started to improve for her after her third surgery, seven months after the first corrective surgery, where she received another small implant to repair “what was left of[her]nipple.” But she’s not out of the woods yet.
“They are now completely different sizes. The implant on the left is on top of the muscle, and the right is sad and misshapen,” Bertinelli wrote.
Bertinelli, who has spoken openly about her journey of self-acceptance in the past, hopes to “flatten things out completely” and end her breast augmentation saga with her fourth surgery.
“Honestly, I was lucky to survive. That weekend was scary as hell. I’ve always thought I had to fix something about myself, and this last round was really tough,” she said.
