Petra's Healing Journey

So ten days after asking for my measurements, I called the hospital threatening to make a complaint if I didn’t hear back from them by the end of the day.

At 4:40 my oncologist called me to say the measurements were in. I was standing in a queue in a shop so I asked him to email them to me.

I’d said to myself, if they come back saying they’re exactly the same as they were over a year ago, I’m not gonna believe it. To change by 11mm in four months, and then not change at all in the following year and a quarter is really hard to believe. And that’s exactly what they said.

Had all the treatments I’d been doing kept it precisely the same size over a prolonged period of time?

Or had my treatments done nothing because it’s not proper cancer. They said it was fast growing and would be invasive after 6 months, but a year and a half later it’s exactly the same size. It’s actually smaller, but not smaller enough for me to keep going, whether I believe the measurements or not. I have very little choice than to trust that the hospital haven’t lied through their teeth.

I felt like I’d been backed into a corner. Because of how big it is and how small my boobs are, doing nothing indefinitely isn’t really an option. 12-20% of DCIS does become invasive, and it’s too close to my lungs to take chances. According to the doctors mine is likely to be in that bracket because I’m running out of milk ducts.

The only way I might be able to figure out if my treatments were keeping it at bay is to have surgery, and in the meantime stop doing the treatments and see if it grows between now and then. If it grows I’ll know the treatments were working and I’ll do some of those instead of radiotherapy. If it doesn’t grow, I’ll know that the treatments don’t work on DCIS.

I saw the plastic surgeon on Wednesday and they just called me to tell me my surgery is booked for the 23rd January.

I’m quite attached to my boobs. They’re one of my best features. I’ll be sad to see it go.

It’s an 8 hour operation with 3 surgical teams. One to take my boob away, one take the fat from my belly and rebuild it and one to cut away a piece of my third rib so they can reconnect blood vessels to the new tissue.

I’ve decided to have a big tattoo over my new ‘belly’ boob, instead of a nipple tattoo, which look pretty hideous.

And I can’t say I’m upset about a free tummy tuck 😏