The Birth of an Activist

Hello,

Someone asked me how I went from a Victim to Advocate and then Activist. If you look at organizations like the Susan G. Komen Foundation or Mothers against Drunk Drivers, or the Jimmy Rice Foundation or National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; they all started with a moment in life that changed them forever. Sadly, they are a moment or moments which can only be described as 'Life Altering.'

As you know from previous entries, my Essure coils were surgically removed in October of 2012. I could have just left the Essure Problems Facebook group as I was one of the lucky ones to become e-free, however, that wasn't an option for me. I was already too emotionally invested in the cause and the metamorphosis to Activist had already begun. I had several of those moments caused by Essure which impacted me so deeply that I simply could NOT go away quietly knowing that others could experience what I did.

You see, Essure robbed me of so much. It almost made my child as orphan as I could have died when I started bleeding uncontrollably - I'm the only parent. I could have died on the operating table having the two surgical procedures required to repair the damage caused by Essure and to free me of these nightmarish things. The man I was crazy about walked away from me two days after my bleeding episode because "he didn't sign up for this." The backstage mom of a dancer was stuck in the audience because I was too sick to help my daughter with hair / makeup / costume changes. This doesn't even touch on the things I simply forgot because my short-term memory still isn't the same because of Essure. I lost all of this because of birth control, JUST birth control.

ANGER - it’s a very powerful emotion and when you channel anger, you can change the world. I won't go as far as say that I want to change the world, just a piece of it, the piece that has directly angered me - Essure and the FDA.

When it comes to the FDA, boy, I was sure naive. I foolishly thought they are watching out for me. That couldn't be further than the truth. The FDA approves medical devices, but for them to actually do something when injuries are caused by medical devices, that's almost laughable. They'll let the manufacturer explain "it" away and the complaint will be filed. It's probably filed in the same place as my FOIA request. Anyway, the FDA puts more value on studies paid for and performed by doctors employed by or affiliated with the device manufacturer than they do in the words of women who are injured. The FDA doesn't even do their own studies? The whole process is a JOKE... To date, there have been more women injured by Essure than the total number of women included in the clinical trials.

Essure is now owned by Bayer and they are on a mission to cover their tracks and protect their ass-ets. They know we can't sue them; they purposely sought out PMA to protect themselves from the liabilities they know they are causing. They also know that nickel is a problem. They can't deny this as seven studies have been performed and in each and every one, they purposely exclude women who have nickel allergy. Knowing this, they still sought and received approval to remove the nickel warning from the label. Yes, the FDA approved the label change.

The emotional attachment to so many of the victims of Essure feeds my anger. Anger bread from sadness is more powerful than anger itself. The stories of those who are injured keep me going on the days where I think I can't keep going.

Essure off the market, and then the FDA needs to duck... Can't take out one without the other and they are both in the red zone.