AceShowbiz -

Stephanie March opened up on her plastic surgery nightmare. In an essay on Refinery29, the "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" actress revealed she went under the knife for breast augmentation before her divorce from Bobby Flay, and the result was horrifying.

It was in 2014 and she suffered from identity crisis after appendectomy and endometriosis surgeries. "I was 39 years old, and my life was disintegrating. Couldn't get a job I wanted on camera, couldn't get attention for my production projects, couldn't travel the world far enough or fast enough or immerse myself in philanthropy enough to make it all go away," she revealed.

"The other thing that was happening was that my marriage of nearly 10 years (and 14 together) was falling apart. And nothing, nothing was helping me cope. Not therapy, not patience, not wine-soaked dinners with friends where I 'got it all out,' " she went on. "I could not fix it - any of it. My job. My relationship. My life. Not a damn thing."

"I decided to try one last thing. And what I did next was exactly what you are not supposed to do when it comes to plastic surgery. I decided to change my body because I couldn't change my life," March said, adding that she "looked darn good" at first after the surgery.

"That is, until one morning in early October," she recalled, "when I sat up in bed and felt a sickening wet mucus sliding down my chest. It was everywhere, soaking my shirt and the sheets. My right implant was infected and the seams of the scar on my right breast had burst. I raced to my surgeon's office."

"I had a hole in my breast for 6 weeks while I blasted my body with antibiotics," she said. "I had the implant put back in. I had another infection and rupture on Christmas Eve. I had it taken out again. I had more cultures and tests and conversations with doctors than I care to recall."

She found out she was allergic to implants, something that "occur in at least 1|percent| of breast implant patients, according to the FDA." With her marriage hitting the rock bottom and her mother battling pancreatic cancer, she decided, "Enough of this. I have other things to worry about. Take them out. I'm done with this project."

Now that the nightmare is over, she is in a better place. Her mother's health improves. She is expanding her business, moves into a new apartment and has a new man. "Today, the scars are fading into fine white lines. My breasts are small, well proportioned, and just right for my body. Every day, the evidence of all that happened fades a little more, and my year of living terribly recedes into memory," she said.

March concluded her happy ending story, "All that I had, all that I was, from the beginning, was all I needed to be. And now, I anticipate summer of 2016 with great joy. I will be poolside, beachside, and swimming - and perhaps, in a more daring moment (with a margarita nearby), I will be topless. I have nothing to hide."