So……
I decided to take up the consultant’s kind offer of rebuilding my missing boob and surgery is booked for 25th February. Wow.
Due to radiotherapy damage, the best option is LD Flap with an implant. http://www.macmillan.org.uk/information-and-support/treating/surgery/types-of-breast-reconstruction/using-tissue-from-your-back.html
It basically involves tunnelling the muscle and tissue from your back to your front, under your armpit to create a pouch and new (good) skin being placed in between radiotherapy skin, then a expander implant being placed under your muscle. It’s a complicated process and expected to be on the table for about 6 hours or so. I cheekily told my surgeon I’d bring her some energising snacks.
My surgeon is very direct and says, hopefully this will work, but we will open your front first to ensure we can ‘plug in’ the new tissue, if all is good we’ll flip you over and begin. If they can’t that’s it, there are no other treatment options, I’ve not got enough fat to harvest from other areas, so unless I meet a guy who wants to feed me and make me balloon up a few sizes to make a new boob, it’s really this or nothing. No pressure.
Thing is I am happy as I am, having a boob recreated won’t make me more attractive or more confident, or the person I was before. It’s taken me a while to agree to this as I considered all the factors and all the temporary restrictions during recovery.
But if this doesn’t work, I’ll be gutted as I have started to let my mind run away with ideas of not having a prosthesis that can fall out in downward dog, the thought of wearing underwear – matching underwear not at overpriced ranges. The thought of wearing necklines that suit my body shape better than my limited options. The thought of being able to stand in underwear in front of someone, the thought of waking up from surgery and there being a boob mound, where there has been flatness for 4 years.
I told myself at my first surgery, an unthinkable 4 years ago that I would love and embrace the new me, as I might be like this a long time if not forever. I’ve done my utmost to do this, and lovingly stroke my flat left side. I gave up wearing post cancer bras that are mostly frumpy and over priced and returned to normal ones and squeeze my prosthesis in. Sure I’m a little timid (still) about whipping it all off and showing my missing boob to anyone new or intimate. But this hasn’t stopped me swimming, or having photo shoots cheekily covering my lack of boob. I have found an incredible love of myself and I’m always saddened to hear women consider themselves mutilated or having their breast amputated after a mastectomy and those so miserable after reconstruction too.
We are so much more than our physical packages, we all get older and bodies change, why should that affect our confidence and how people rate us. The older I get the less impressed I am by any superficial aspect. That and materialism bore me.
I was at a spa with a friend last Sunday, this guy was confidently showering under a waterfall in the jacuzzi and you couldn’t help but look at him, as he washed his muscled torso and shook his hair. He looked amazingly confident, and as he got out only then did I notice he in fact had one leg. It didn’t detract from his confidence or attractiveness in the slightest. Reaffirmed what I believed too.
So I have every hope that this looming surgery will work, but if it doesn’t what difference will it make ? I’ll still be me and I’m beautifully flawed as we all are. It makes me original a unique piece – who wants to be a cheap copy ? Not me.
So in character to all my previous treatments I will no doubt blog more, it’s my little outlet. So I’ll be seeing you soon….
2theleftofme 