Today we meet with Dr Kt again. She examines me and talks about the surgery which she has scheduled for next Monday – what? Next Monday? Yikes.

I feel confident in Dr Kt – she is young enough to have passion and drive, and old enough to have experience and knowledge. She tells me she will do a single mastectomy and a TDAP flap reconstruction. She will also need to take out some of my pectoral muscle so back muscle will be used to replace it. I do ask if she’d consider a double mastectomy but she says that doing both together would be too much for my body and also that with a single I will recover more quickly and be able to resume chemo sooner. I tell her I think the tumour has shrunk but she says the CT scan showed invasion of my muscle which is worrisome. She says things like Emergency Surgery and Radical Mastectomy which freaks me out just a little.

Her PA Cl sends through an estimate of surgery costs in the private hospital and I am tasked with getting pre-approval from Southern Cross. It seems to go through smoothly – the guy at Southern Cross is very helpful. Looks like it’s on.