[StyleLikeU] So, can you talk about
what your style says about you?
- I had model parents my whole life, and so I grew up
in the industry of everyone being beautiful and a world
that just doesn't exist, it's not reality.
I was always just lost in kind of being that cool
girl or that pretty girl, or whatever it was,
and I didn't have a problem getting in anywhere,
I didn't have problem getting out of tickets, or...
I used it.
It was my go-to.
And when this happened, something physical that
I couldn't hide.
I was that girl that you wanted, but you couldn't get.
I ran away from love, I ran away from anything that
was substance.
Being seen next to so-and-so, who cares?
- [StyleLikeU] Being seen.
- But that actually matters to some people.
That actually, to them, is their value, because they
don't value themselves.
So that person is validating their worth,
because they're somebody.
Unless something really tragic happens, or something
that you have to confront head on, I don't think
that you'll change, really.
I think it's just something that you'll keep tossing away
and keep pushing aside.
- [StyleLikeU] Can you explain what happened to you,
from the beginning?
- It was 2012, I was 24 years old.
It was a normal day in my life.
I was on my period.
I ran out of my go-to's, ran downstairs, picked up
a couple things, got some tampons, went back up.
I changed my tampon, I laid in my bed, I was texting
with my girlfriends.
I started feeling kind of shitty.
It was my friend's birthday and I was texting with them,
deciding if I was even going to be able to make it
because I started feeling worse and worse as the day went on
Just flu-like symptoms.
Just starting to feel nauseous, and my head pounding.
As soon as I walked inside, literally all of my friends
looked at me and said, "Dude, you look really horrible,
"like, you need to go home."
I drove myself back to my apartment and all I wanted
to do was get into my bed.
The next thing I remember is my blind cocker spaniel
barking ferociously on my chest.
I shook my head a little bit and I came to and I
could just hear pounding at the door,
and it was "Police, police, open up!"
And I was just like why are the police here?
I was so confused.
And it was one officer, and he came inside,
and there was dog pee and poo everywhere
because I hadn't been able to take my dog out.
I didn't even know what time it was,
I had no idea what was going on.
He looked around my apartment and he looked at me
and he said "You're really sick."
And I said, "Okay."
And he said "You really need to call your mom,
"because she's really worried about you."
I carried myself back to my bed, I plugged in my
cell phone, charged a little bit, enough to call
my mom.
She was frantic.
She said, "Are you okay, do you need an ambulance?"
I was like I'm just really sick, I just want to sleep.
And obviously the cop had just left, so she felt
comfortable with saying "I'll see you in the morning."
I guess my mom never heard from me,
called for another welfare check.
Called for all of my girlfriends to go to my apartment.
Was actually on her way from Riverside,
and called the police.
They got to my apartment.
Took them like 30 minutes to get inside.
They found me on my bedroom floor, face down.
I had 107 fever, all my kidneys were failing,
and I had a heart attack.
Thank God there was an infectious disease doctor there,
because as soon as they saw me, I was plummeting so bad
that they didn't understand why this young, healthy
24-year-old girl was dying, and there was nothing
I was being receptive to, so they couldn't figure it out.
They called the specialist down, and he said
'Does she have a tampon in?'
And once they located that I had a tampon, and they
took it out, they sent it to the lab, and it came back
as TSS1, Toxic Shock Syndrome.
And as soon as they removed it, I started becoming
more succeptive to the medicine and the antibiotics.
They could put me in a medically induced coma
and life support, and that could stabilize me
for the time-being.
They were telling my mom and my godfather that they
should prepare my funeral and that there's no way
I'm gonna walk out of there, that it'd be a miracle.
- [StyleLikeU] So you started feeling symptoms
right away with the first tampon, right?
It wasn't like when you were sleeping that it was...
- I was completely, it was just a normal day.
I didn't think anything different.
I'd been using the same brand for 11 years.
So I was in a medically induced coma for
a week-and-a-half.
Then I told you they had to pump me full of
80 pounds of fluid to get all the toxins out
of my body, countless blood transfusions.
I just remember waking up and being like
I couldn't see my vagina.
I was like this is crazy, why am I so huge?
My feet were just excruciating, they were just on fire,
and like literally felt like they were just being burned.
As I was actually there, I was by myself,
my mom had just stepped out, my godfather had just left,
so I was completely alone.
And there was a curtain there and there was a nurse.
And I remember her speaking to someone from UCLA,
saying I have a 24-year-old girl here who's gonna
need a right leg below the knee amputation.
And I soon as I heard...
- [StyleLikeU] That was the first time you heard that?
- Yeah, and I was by myself, and I knew my legs were
not good, but I just couldn't--hearing those words
out of her mouth, and being by myself, it was so surreal.
That was really heavy.
It was already surreal enough to wake up in that state,
and knowing that I was obviously that severe,
to hear that.
I'm an athlete, I'm 24 years old.
I'm just a girl, I had my whole life.
My legs were my life.
I didn't want it to be true.
I just kept crying and screaming and wanting my mom.
Please, mom, don't let them take my leg.
Please don't let that happen.
But I don't think there's anything you could really do
in that situation, other than try and be strong.
I wouldn't look at my legs.
I had these boots on, white little boots that
I just kept over my feet to protect them,
but also so I didn't have to look at them,
because they were black, they were gangrene,
they were dead, they weren't coming back.
You know, and then I had prosthetic people coming in
and showing me suitcases full of legs.
I had amputees meeting me and showing me what
my new life is gonna be like.
You know, they told me what my options was, so I had to
sign the papers for my right leg to go.
Which is fucking crazy, 'cause I don't even think you
could even process what you're signing at that moment.
When they call your name to go in there, to like do it,
I mean, my mom, God bless her, it was so hard.
- [StyleLikeU] Do you want a tissue?
We'll get you a tissue.
- She slept there, she--everything.
Never left my side.
You know my mom kissing my leg and they write like
'yes' and 'no' on your legs.
Like 'Yes this is the one that's going,'
and 'No, this is the one that we're keeping.'
To see that visually on your leg, and then my mom
kissing my leg and knowing that that's the last time...
It was...
Crazy.
During the procedure of my amputation, my body and my heart
freaked out, so as soon as I came to, they wouldn't give me
pain medicine for 24 hours.
So immediately I woke up from the amputation and I felt
every single thing that happened for 24 hours.
Screaming my head off, throwing shit, I mean, it was
fucking hell.
I was miserable.
I hated everyone, I hated everything.
I hated myself.
I feel so bad for my mom because she was my punching bag
in those moments, in that time in my life,
because I just did not want to live.
What the hell do I do from here?
Where did I go?
Where's my freedom?
Where's my independence?
My little brother was 14 at the time, and he was
coming home every day from school.
As much as I wanted to give in and kill myself
and end the misery that I was dealing with every
moment of every day, knowing that he would come home
and be the one to find me and live the rest of his
life knowing that I'd given up, and I took the easy
way out, or whatever he may have thought,
I didn't want him living with that.
That that wasn't the last thing that he saw of me
in those moments.
So going back to me being superficial and a jerk
in my previous life, and being in the club and being
'that girl.' My girlfriend now, she would be in the club
around that time, too, and would try to photograph me
and I would be a complete dick to her, and just be
like, no, I don't want you to take my picture.
And just be a jerk, for no reason.
It's literally, as soon as I woke up from that coma,
I was a completely different person.
Literally, it was crazy. - Wow.
- And I immediately wanted to apologize to everybody
that I had done wrong or had been rude to or whatever
it may have been.
I just wanted to make peace.
So I reached out to her and I was like, 'I'm so sorry,
blah, blah, blah.'
Cut to, I'm in my apartment, miserable, she texted me
or Facebooked me out of nowhere and she said 'Hey
I'm going to the movies with my kids, would love
if you'd come.'
And literally at that moment I lied to her
and I said 'I'm in New York, actually, modeling
right now. I can't.'
But really I was in my bed just trying to learn
how to walk again.
- [StyleLikeU] Judgment?
- I was so afraid of--it wasn't even judgment.
It was rejection.
It was the one thing that I had never had to deal with
in my entire life.
Am I ugly?
Am I disgusting?
I'm ashamed of who I am.
I'm no longer beautiful.
I'm no longer that hot supermodel-esque, or whatever you
want to...
I'm not that girl anymore.
What am I?
We kept talking and we actually fell in love
over the phone.
Even though we'd met each other.
I used her as my motivation to make sure that
I could walk to her front door and I could stand up
and I could with pants on, her seeing me as a human
being, and not as someone who's just gone through
something, but just I'm Lauren Wasser.
You know, like, it's me.
I remember just walking up to her door,
and she opened the door...
- [StyleLikeU] Wait, were you really nervous
to walk up to her door, 'cause you knew she was
gonna find out, obviously.
Or did you not?
- I didn't care what she said to me, it was the fact
that I knew to get to that point what I had to do
for myself,
- [StyleLikeU] You were ready.
- I was ready.
I knocked on her door and she opened the door
and I walked in fine, and I just said
'I need to tell you something.'
And she was like, 'Okay.'
And then I told her and I showed her my leg and she's
like, 'I don't fucking care.'
It was so like...whew.
Tampon companies have done a very good job of kind of
making it seem as though everything's okay.
You see tampon commercials and you see girls
running on the beach or going on the slide,
and it's like there's no warning at the bottom
of that at all about TSS or you could lose limbs
or you could fucking die.
It can happen within five minutes of using one.
It could be your first tampon you ever use
in your life.
And I realize that I had a purpose.
And then we got in links with this Congresswoman
Carolyn Maloney here in New York City.
She's gone in front of Congress 9, 10 times, trying to
pass this bill called the Robin Danielson Act.
It was after a woman who died in 1998 from
Toxic Shock Syndrome, and it's basically just
a bill to, as women, to have more info on what's
going in these products, and what are the long term
effects it has on our bodies using them for as long
as we do.
There's more research done on coffee filters
than on women's hygiene.
I've been modeling again and my first job actually back
was with Nordstrom.
They actually gave my gold leg its own page,
which is really cool, because I didn't know what to expect.
I didn't know how are they gonna treat me?
Are they gonna treat me like a regular model?
And I got there and it was just like everyone was amazing
and I felt like a million bucks.
- [StyleLikeU] Would you ever trade?
- It's hard because there's a part of me that
I wake up and I wish that I could go outside
and fuckin' run a marathon.
So that mentally fucks me on a daily basis.
I can't think about what I had because me doing that
is just going backwards.
I'm trying to move forward.
My heart wouldn't be full.
I wouldn't feel like I'm doing good.
I wouldn't feel like I'm making an impact in a positive way.
I wouldn't have known what that felt like, because I
didn't do that before.
So I don't think I would.
- [StyleLikeU] Thank you so much, that was just the
most unbelievably beautiful...
- Thank you.
- [StyleLikeU] gift that you just gave.
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