We see Dr Kt and I meet nurse Ly in person for the first time. Dr Kt examines me and shows obvious pride in her work which is actually quite nice. I’m looking at my body thinking what a fucking mess, and she’s looking at it as a beautiful job done well. I resolve to try to be more Dr Kt, less me.

She has done a major overhaul on my body. The surgery was more extensive than expected and Dr Kt has removed not only my left breast, Betty, and all my left armpit lymph nodes, but also much of my left side pectoral muscle. She has then disconnected my latissimus dorsi muscle from my upper back, swung it around and reattached it at the front to cover my ribs and give me some protection when I undergo radiotherapy. It’s really quite amazing!

I knew it was going to be major when the surgery was described as a Radical Mastectomy but the closure is more Radical than we had at first discussed. Instead of a TDAP flap I have had what’s called an LD flap. The wounds are massive and they all glued closed instead of having dressings. This is great as I don’t have to change anything and the glue will naturally peel off over the next couple of weeks. Dr Kt has done a very tidy job.

Apparently I am healing very well and my body is already absorbing the fluid so the seroma (fluid bubble) does not require any drainage. Dr Kt is happy to refer me back to Oncology and Chemo. She goes over the pathology notes from examination of the tumour and tells me that the chemo has only been 15% effective. This underlines my certainty that we made the right decision by switching to surgery. I can only hope that the chemo was doing a better job destroying all the little Baby Betty off-shoot cells. My cancer has been re-tested for hormone receptors and it is now showing PR receptor positive as well as weak ER positive. This could open up the possibility of some hormone treatment options.

Dr Kt removed 35 axillary lymph nodes from my left armpit (who knew there were so many?). Of these 13 were cancerous. That’s a lot but the good news here is that high axilla, or most upper level of lymph nodes were all clear.

Big Betty weighed in at a massive 869g. As Susannah put it, that’s like two cans of tinned tomatoes! And that’s after she’d shrunk a little. Her final size when excised was 14cm. What a bitch!

I won’t see Dr Kt again for another 5 months, all going well. I will still have nurse Ly to contact if I have any surgical questions or concerns which is comforting.