This is long overdue and for that I am sorry, I thought I had already written a post explaining what was going to happen with my second surgery but turned out I hadn't. I apologise.

Its a year today since my surgery! I can't quite believe it has been that long, time seems to go so fast now...I must be getting old ;-)
Today isn't a special day, I wouldn't have realised if my mother out-law (like mother in law only Sean and I aren't married!) hadn't pointed it out to me at the weekend. 

Where am I a year on; I am on the waiting list to have my implants exchanged, I rarely think about my surgery or my boobs and I have no concern about getting breast cancer.

My BRCA status is a very small part of my life and the surgery I had last year means that it will always play a small part as I will never get breast cancer, how lucky I am.

I saw my surgical team this afternoon to discuss how we will proceed now both my implants have turned. 
As a quick update; I had the anatomical implants which are tear drop shaped, they have both turned so that the fullest parts are now facing toward the centre of my chest instead of downwards as they should be. 
Because they have moved bits are sitting in the wrong place and pulling parts that shouldn't be pulled and this is getting a bit uncomfortable (not painful but a bit achy).

We came to a decision that the best thing to do will be to surgically remove my current implants and replace them with the round implants. That way if they turn again it wont make any difference to how they look.
This surgery will be done under general anaesthetic but it will be scheduled as a day case meaning I wont have to stay in the hospital over night and I shouldn't need any drains.
As I have had my nipple reconstruction over the original incision the surgeon will make a new incision in the fold under my breast. 

I have an appointment at the end of June to measure for implant size and the surgery will be done in September. 
Obviously it is a little disappointing that I have to undergo a second surgery but it will be much easier than the original mastectomy. Hopefully come September this will all be finished with! 

Its a while since I updated this diary regarding my recovery, mainly because I'm kind of in limbo. I wrote about my wonky booby, its still wonky and I think the other one is heading on the wonk now as well. They look fine...they just don't look as good as they did earlier on. I am seeing my surgeon in May to discuss how we should proceed...leave them be, swap them out for new anatomical implants and hope they don't turn again, swap them for round implants so they can turn as much as they please without it mattering or steal some fat from my fat thighs to fill in the wrinkles on my wonky booby. I will see what the surgeon thinks.

Anyway, I had my nipples tattooed on around the new year. That was interesting! Its just like getting a normal tattoo really. On one side I couldn't feel it at all but on the other side it hurt quite a lot, it was a strange kind of pain because I can't feel superficial sharp pain so it was just the deep ache type pain. Not very nice but it didn't last long. The breast nurse did it in the plastic surgery clinic so that was nice, not some big hairy man at a tattoo parlour! 

I have put a couple of photos next (so again please only press the read more button if you are considering this surgery or similar, or are supporting a lady who is having this surgery)

Have you seen the race for life adverts on TV? 
Watch it above, it make my hairs stand on end...what an amazing attitude.

I will be running the race for life this year with my mum.
If you would like to sponsor us you can do so at our just giving page;
But I don't want you to sponsor us, I want you to sign up for your local race and get your own sponsors. 
Lets raise some money so that our children and grandchildren have a chance of avoiding the decisions we are facing. 

I saw the surgeon yesterday for a routine check up post nipple recon.
For a couple of days I have noticed that my right breast has changed shape, with wrinkling on the outer edge and the inner part becoming more 'full'. I was a little worried as I thought it might be a capsular contracture (where scar tissue forms a hard capsule around the implant) this would probably require surgery to repair and I wasn't keen!

I mentioned this to my surgeon who had a little look and a bit of a feel and told me that my implant had turned. I have the anatomically shaped implants which are sort of tear drop shaped, the fullness at the bottom of the tear drop has turned itself 90 degrees so that it is now sitting at 3 o'clock with the tapered end pointing towards my armpit (this sounds very confusing to me so I hope it sort of makes sense...imagine a normal shaped boob turned on its side!).

He got me up on the couch and had a good old tug to try and put it back (like you do with a breach baby!) but with no luck. So now I have to decide if I would like surgery to turn it back the right way or if I would like to leave it as it is. My immediate reaction was I do NOT want any more surgery.
But when I got home I started to think how proud I was of my lovely result and how I was very happy to share pictures because I thought it would make mastectomy a bit less scary, now they're not so perfect I'm not as keen to show them off. I feel a bit silly because this was never about aesthetics and they really don't look that bad but the mastectomy gave me perfect boobs and I want them back! 

Anyway...I have made an appointment to have my nipples tattooed a darker colour than the areola to make them look even more real! That's happening on the 2nd Jan at a very ungodly hour...hopefully the xmas brandy and new year champers will have worn off by then! 
The surgeon want's to see me again after that so we can have a chat about what to do with this naughty booby!

It's been over six weeks since my nipple reconstruction surgery and I'm very sorry that I haven't updated this diary in so long...I started my third year of study the week before the surgery and I now have so little time!
 
The surgery took place on Monday 3rd September, I received a phone call on the Friday asking me to come in on the Monday so I didn't have much time to worry about it!
I was on the morning surgery list again so turned up to the given ward at 8am. We went through the usual routine of infection swabs and consent forms and then I got into my surgical gown and waited. 
 
I was taken down to surgery at about 11am. Although I would not be put to sleep for this surgery it was still performed in the full operating theatre, (I expected a nice relaxing room with a big comfy chair!) this was a little bit of a shock and actually made me feel a bit panicky. I think it just made the surgery a bit more serious and I was scared that it would hurt. 
 
I was laid on the bed my chest was scrubbed with the orange cleaning solution, the surgeons then drew where they would make their incisions. The surgery wasn't done by my usual surgeon, it was done by two of his colleagues who were lovely and very skilled, but again I had been expecting the man himself so this threw me a bit. 
 
I was then injected with local anaesthetic around where the marks had been drawn. This is normally quite a painful injection but, due to the mastectomy, I can't actually feel that area anyway so I didn't feel a thing. After they had given the anaesthetic some time to kick in the surgeons set to work. The whole op, including stitching up, took only 40mins! I was completely at ease once I had got used to the set up and the surgeons chatted away to me which was nice. 
 
When they had finished they stuck a huge bit of horrendous blue foam over each nipple and told me I had to wear it for 6weeks! I looked like Madonna! (It turned out ok in the end as I was allowed to take it off to shower after the first week and you couldn't really see it under a bra)
 
After the op I was taken back up to the ward and then I was free to leave immediately (no such luck for the lady in the next bed who had a huge freak out in the operating theatre and demanded a general anaesthetic!) I felt absolutely fine, no pain and no poorly feeling as I hadn't had any medication. I went back to work the next day, no bother. 
 
On the Wednesday (two days post op) I got home from work at the GP to find my left breast was completely purple with lots of little red vessels all over. HUGE panic and rush to my non-work GP who sent me off to A&E. After a couple of hours wait in A&E I was seen by the surgical registrar and then by the lady who actually did the surgery. The consensus was that it was most likely bruising but I was given a week of antibiotics just to be safe and asked to come back on Friday to see how things were going. Things were looking loads better on Friday so I was given the all clear. 
 
I had to attend the dressing clinic at the two week mark to have the dressings removed and at that point everything was looking great. After that I just had to keep wearing the blue foam to ensure the nipples didn't get squashed. I stopped wearing the foam a week ago and my nipples look brill! They have flattened a little but just to normal nipple size and I'm very happy with the result. Now I just have to have the nipple tattooed to make it darker than the areola and I will be complete! 

When I was researching this surgery I felt it was very important that I see pictures of the result I could expect. It is only thanks to other women posting their results on similar blogs that I could understand what I may look like post-surgery. That is why I want to make images of my results available to women who are considering this surgery. 

If you are reading this out of morbid curiosity, you are a friend, family member, lecturer or anyone else who doesn't have to face breast reconstruction then please respect my privacy and don't read any further. 

Please be aware that the next section contains images of my breasts post surgery. Only click on Read More if you feel that viewing these images will be beneficial to your surgery decision. 

Its over a month since I wrote on here and for that I am very sorry, but I have really had nothing to say. 

Life has returned to normal and I don't want to bore you with mundane updates on that! 

A month ago today I was probably at the sewing up stage after a successful bilateral mastectomy. 

I can't quite believe that is true. If you saw me on the street you wouldn't know (unless you caught sight of the hideous bra they're making me wear for another two weeks). Sean and my parents have practically forgotten that I had surgery. If fact, if you saw me naked in the pool changing rooms you probably wouldn't know...unless you stared directly at my nipples...and that would be a bit strange. 

Talking about swimming...I just had a call from the physio. 
I have to wait til the 6 weeks mark until I can do any real exercise, not what I was hoping for as I'm quite fed up of this sedentary lifestyle. 
I may be taking that advice with a pinch of salt and partaking in some gentle swimming...I think, seems as she was asking if I still had to bring my head down to my toothbrush (?), I may be recovering a little faster than average and I don't see how 10mins of very slow breaststroke can do any harm...I spend that long drying my hair and that is far more exhausting! 

So the one month anniversary of my new boobs has been completely uneventful, in fact if the physio didn't call it would have passed by unnoticed!