Nazanin 'Naz' Khanjani discovered New Zealand was going back into a COVID-19 alert level 4 lockdown last week as she was waking up after her latest breast surgery.
But things went from bad to worse as she had to go back to hospital for more surgery due to complications that potentially could have been fatal.
The former Bachelor NZ and Dancing With The Stars NZ contestant says at first, she was very happy with the cosmetic work done at a private clinic in Auckland on August 17 - before the real nightmare began.
"They'd done an amazing job, everything looked great. However, a few hours after being home I was sitting on my bed and I felt the bottom of my left breast start to really hurt," said Naz.
"Within maybe 20 minutes that breast was double size and felt like it was going to burst. The pain - oh my God, it was horrible. I was crying so much.
"I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, every time I took a breath it ached. I was terrified because I didn't know what was going on, I'd never experienced anything like this before."
She texted a photo of the swelling to a nurse friend who told her a blood vessel must have popped and it looked like she had internal bleeding.
"That really scared me," said Naz.
"She's friends with the surgeon who did the work so she messaged them and they called me straight away, they said I'd be OK overnight but to make sure I was taking the painkillers and come in first thing."
The next morning, Naz went back to the clinic for a quick examination that confirmed internal bleeding after which she was sent to Middlemore Hospital to have more surgery.
"My surgeon gave me a spare implant to take in, just in case they needed to replace it. It was quite funny carrying around a boob implant with me! I actually have my old ones from him too, I don't know what I'm going to do with them, ha ha."
However, the operation couldn't be completed that day due to how busy the hospital was. Naz was "gutted" it had to be put off, but was grateful to eventually get it done on August 19.
"Once I came to, a surgeon came in and told me that when they cut me open, took the implant out and had a look, I actually had a blood clot. There was infection in there as well. They drained about 100ml fluid from me," she said.
"There was some bleeding still occurring inside, they stopped all of that, fixed up the blood clot, cleaned everything with antibiotics. There was no damage to the implant so they put the same one back inside and stitched me up."
After learning that she had suffered a blood clot, Naz said she was "blown away".
"That could've killed me. You can die from those, so it scared me and I was thinking about how lucky I was to go and have the operation done. If I hadn't texted my friend and she got me to go get it checked out, God knows what would have happened."
She was discharged from Middlemore Hospital on August 20 and is scheduled for a check-up on Thursday.
Naz is appreciative of a friend she lives with who has been looking after her as she's stuck in bed on a lot of medication.
"I still haven't had a good night's sleep and am on a lot of painkillers. I am getting better, very slowly, but it's just a slow recovery process," she said.
"I don't know how I would have done this if I lived alone during lockdown, I would have been in big trouble."
She said that she didn't blame the surgeon at all for what happened, putting it down to "simple bad luck" and "just how my body reacted".
Earlier this year, Naz made headlines for publicly stating she didn't believe in lockdowns as an appropriate measure to combat the COVID-19 pandemic after saying she'd recovered from the illness herself.
"I guess at the time I was surrounded by information promoting anti-lockdown, it was all I listened to everyday and I allowed it all to get to me over time," she said.
"I understand why they are put into place when there are new cases found. With this new Delta strain, I do support the lockdown and think it's important to tackle it quickly before it gets out of control like many other countries in the world have."
However, she has "no regrets" about voicing her previous anti-lockdown opinion.
"People are always going to have different views, perspectives, opinions and thoughts on topics, that's just life lol," said Naz.
