New year, new boobs. Well sort of.
I’m now 7 weeks post mastectomy and starting to regain some
normality however I do still have a little way to go yet.
6 weeks recovery time flew by and all of the things I was
worried about missing just didn’t seem to matter. I didn’t miss the gym or work
and didn’t feel like I was missing out on festive season parties. My body and
mind needed and relished the rest.
It has been great getting back to work and feeling like I’m getting
back to normal but it’s also been a huge struggle and I’m working reduced hours
for a couple of weeks as I’m so exhausted and in a little pain.
As part of my breast reconstruction I was given expanders or
‘spacers’ instead of implants. These create space under the chest wall muscle
for permanent implants by gradually stretching muscle and skin. On January 5th
I underwent my first expansion appointment or ‘fill’.
The procedure is so clever; first the metal valve on the
expander is located using a magnetic device then a large needle injects 100cc
of saline through skin and muscle into the expander. Luckily for me my breasts
are completely numb and I couldn’t feel the needle. What I did feel however was
a very strange sensation of stretching and pressure. Think a balloon being
inflated inside your body.
I didn’t look down the whole time convinced that if I saw
the needle I’d feel the needle. When the process was over and I did finally
look down, I couldn’t believe that I now had what resembled breasts. My flat
chest had expanded to a similar size as it was pre-mastectomy, my inverted
depressed nipples had popped out and I finally felt like I had a feminine shape
again.
My second fill is on the 9th of February and I’ll
repeat this process until I’m at a good size and, more importantly, there is
enough space under my chest wall muscle for more permanent implants. It’s
unreal how many people have asked me if I can just keep going until I’ve got ‘Katie
Price boobs’ or have said ‘if it was me I’d just keep going and going’. For me
it was never about the size of my boobs, it was the fact that my boobs were
literally trying to kill me. Now that deadly risk has gone all I care about is
having a womanly shape I can feel comfortable with, I may even feel happy to
wear a bikini one day. I have never wanted to be a glamour model.
Everyone that knows me knows that I have joked (sometimes inappropriately)
through this whole journey, but it isn’t all fun and games. My boobs are and
always will be numb. The scars are still an angry red colour. There are lumps
and bumbs where the skin and muscle has been pulled around and one expander has
slipped an inch sideways so I have more of a side-boob on my left side.
My nipples literally have a life of their own. I can’t feel
them at all but they still decide to pop out to say hello whenever they’re cold
or excited! I’ve also got constant back and shoulder ache whilst my body gets
used to the stretching of my muscles too.
Excitingly, ITV are still following my story and it’s a
possibility that they’ll be attending and featuring my next expansion appointment.
Tough Mudder and Breast Cancer Care are still interested in my story too. I’ve
been chosen out of thousands of entries to be featured on the Tough Mudder
website to promote completing the challenge for charity and I’m also being
featured in Breast Cancer Care’s internal magazine.
My blog is so so close to that magic 10,000 mark so please
read and share. You never know who may be going through the same thing or how
far it could spread. A wonderful lady
from North Carolina, USA messaged me about my blog after undergoing the same
operation. I’ve also had messages from hundreds of people in the UK and Europe.
I can’t explain how happy that makes me and how worthwhile it makes all of this
feel.
Thank you for reading, K x
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