A friend recently remarked that you’re all so heavily invested in my story that it would be only fair to let you see a picture of the new knocker. She’s probably right. So, here’s the result of my trip to the Build-A-Boob Workshop back on that Tuesday in late February. I’m actually quite proud of it – and, simply from a surgical perspective, it IS pretty impressive (in comparison with the flat-chested butchery which was there before, anyway). Unless there’s a market for MastectomyPorn™ – which, to be fair, there probably is somewhere – I guess this is only interesting to those who really care. So, here you go.

This is the norkitecture. My DIEP/TRAM autologous breast reconstruction, should you care to Google it (though readers of a nervous disposition may wish to look away now). No implants whatsoever. What little tummy fat I had has now been re-sited into a brand spanking new boob, and the remains of my tummy have been sewn up so tightly that it took a couple of weeks for the skin to stretch sufficiently for me to be able to stand up straight. My tummy button has been relocated further up, and – joy of joys – my lower abdomen has been pulled up so far that my pubes practically reach my nipples. Er, nipple. The left one is still missing for now. There’s a reason for this.

Breast reconstruction isn’t an exact science, and – while my surgeon promised she’d get as much of my stomach fat to work with as she could – there were no guarantees that the new left side would match the existing right side. In the next six months, the new boob will drop into its natural place, and the left will be reduced (or boosted) to match. In my case, it looks like it’ll have to be boosted a cup size or two with fat taken from my bum (I feel that this is one of the few bonus prizes from the pain of these last few years) – at which point, they’ll tattoo my new nipple to match the other side. I can only hope they boost the remaining boob correctly the first time, otherwise I could end up being the proud owner of the Forth Road Bridge of tits, with one chest melon always being slightly more enlarged than the other, meaning that I’ll eventually have to transport them in front of me in a wheelbarrow.

So, as with all the cancer treatment I’ve either witnessed or received over the last five years, this breast reconstruction is a process rather than an event, and I’m still not quite in the clothes I want to wear. But, we’re getting there.

Arriving at the hospital was nerve-wracking. It felt like the last piece of a very complicated jigsaw, but despite the booblessness, I had been feeling better physically than I’ve felt for years. I was running regularly, eating well, my body was toned, and I was feeling perfectly able to take on the challenges that life was continuing to send my way. I knew I’d go in feeling well, and come out, a few days later, totally incapacitated for quite some time. After two years of waiting, I suddenly wasn’t sure if the new boob was going to be worth all the aggravation.

My surgeon put me in a hospital gown, along with paper knickers and compression stockings, and began to draw a huge lip-shaped outline on my abdomen in permanent marker, so she knew where to cut. It went from my left hip, to my right hip, and all the way up to my breastbone. I burst into tears. I’d never imagined they’d take so much of me. She said I didn’t have to go through with it. The New Chap said he’d love me whatever I decided to do, but reminded me that I’d been waiting for this day for two years, and the recovery – whatever it took – would be something we could cope with together. I decided that if he could see me in that outfit, and still love me, then he was probably a keeper, and/or deluded.

I remembered them drawing similar shapes on my husband, and how he was never quite the same after surgery, with half his stomach and oesophagus removed. In fact, his lung had collapsed in surgery and he didn’t wake up for an extra 24 agonising hours. Even though I knew it was a different type of surgery, I panicked in case the same thing should happen to me. But then, I also remembered the feeling I’d had when I was told that the waiting list for reconstruction was over a year long. I thought of all those women behind me in the queue, desperately waiting for the chance to feel like women again. Of my other half, having patiently waited for eighteen months, never being able to get his highly-anticipated soapy titwank. (Not from me, anyway.)

I took a deep breath, said “fuck it” on the exhale, and told them to crack on before I had a chance to run away and change my mind. They parted my gown and took a series of “before” photos, in what might possibly have been the shittest porno ever. (There’s probably a market for that somewhere, too.) New Chap and I embraced, kissed, and parted ways. I’m not sure if it was easier to go into ten hours’ worth of surgery knowing I was leaving him anxiously waiting, or whether it was easier to go into surgery all those months before, knowing that nobody was alive to care.

The surgical team were amazing. They knew I was petrified. They knew this reconstruction was coming at the end of a particularly long road, and were gentle and reassuring. They wiped my tears as they sent me to sleep, and I was totally unaware of everything until I woke up in recovery, unable to move my arms across my chest. Fortunately, it turns out that this was not because my new knocker was so enormous, but because I was lying under a hot inflatable blanket to promote healing. My nurse kept coming along to check my new boob’s blood vessel function with a Doppler. If there was no pulse, it would mean that the surgery hadn’t worked, and the boob would die. All the jelly and heartbeats reminded me of being pregnant again, except that the heartbeat they were listening out for wouldn’t turn out to leave all its wet towels on the floor, or constantly ask me for money and lifts in a few years’ time.

The New Chap came in with my boys. They all told me they loved me. The boys smiled out of sheer relief, and I smiled back, feeling the same. The New Chap wanted to know if I’d had a chance to take a gander under my blanket. For three days, I didn’t move much – my brain was switching between totally wired and totally wiped, and my blood pressure was so low that I couldn’t stand for a while. But, slowly, surely, we got there. I got up. I couldn’t stand up straight because I’d been sewn up so tightly, and once I was discharged a few days later, the pain in my back from being bent double was worse than the pain anywhere else. (Note to any readers about to undergo this very surgery: eat more cake.) It took me a long time to feel normal. I was told to take three months off, but – helloooo, I’m self-employed – I was sending emails from my hospital bed and was back at my desk in my home office within a week. Seven weeks on, I still don’t feel completely right, and I tire very easily, but I’m getting better and stronger by the day. I’ve even started to run again, but rather than knocking out 15K at a time, I’m stumbling along in 5K bursts, provided I use enough scaffolding to keep the new jubbly from bouncing out of my (still rather lopsided) sports bra.

It’ll take a while to feel completely well, and I’m frustrated by the amount of time it’s taking to get back to being me. Frankly, the only thing about me that’s remotely perky is my new left boob. I’m still not quite at the stage of being glad I had the surgery, but I’m sure I will be soon. Perhaps I shouldn’t try to return to whoever “me” is, though. At every crucial moment on this Godforsaken journey: every time we’ve had news which, once said, couldn’t be undone; every time we had to give more bad news to the children; every time one of us was put to sleep to have our body altered beyond all recognition; that moment when my husband took his last breath… those moments have stopped us from ever going back to the person we were before. I realise now that I shouldn’t try to go backwards. Seven weeks ago, I woke up to yet another version of myself – hacked to bits and physically back to square one, but ready to become even stronger, fitter, and more grateful for my life. And, for the first time in a long time, with a living, breathing, loving fella beside me, and a properly cracking set of knockers.

Love Fanny x