Confessions of a Boob Inspector

I'm not some kind of weirdo or pervert-truly! Last week I found myself inspecting two sets of boobs. It was a strange and uncomfortable experience-but oh,so valuable!

Tuesday night there was a meeting of women who expressed an interest in breast reconstruction. The aim of this-the first meeting in the North London area, sponsored by the Royal Free Hospital-was to answer any questions and address any doubts that cancer survivors might have about going through with the operation.

There were about ten of us, plus one consultant plastic surgeon and one clinical nurse specialist in plastic surgery. Her name is Rebecca, and, as it turns out, I will be seeing her when I attend the clinic in May. So I was really glad I went to this thing.

The consultant, Dan, said that only about a third of women who have mastectomies go ahead and have the reconstructive surgery afterward. I was apprehensive, anxious, worried about the pain, the surgery-you name it. I'm such a hospital veteran, I've developed a phobia of hospitals, surgery and doctors.And, speaking with some of the women at the meeting, I discovered I wasn't alone.

Dan showed us slides of four operations: three of them were single mastectomies, where the breasts were reconstructed using tissue from the back and/or the abdomen (I won't elaborate. I don't want you to toss your breakfast). The fourth was a double, and the woman had implants. That was the woman I wanted to see.

So all four women went into little rooms off the main clinic, and the rest of us were told that we could go and see the finished product, as it were. We-no kidding, seriously!- became boob inspectors.

I didn't need to see the women who had tissue taken from their back, although I did walk in with another patient to see the woman who had tissue removed from her abdomen. Her surgeon is my surgeon. I needed to see what he could do. And the results were fantastic. This woman was big-and I do mean, big-and she showed us that Steve (my surgeon) reconstructed one breast to be the same size as the other. You couldn't really tell the difference.

I then went to see the woman who had the implants. She said that she had no fat on her back or stomach, so they needed to do implants-and I am in the same situation, except that I will have expanders, and will have saline injected every two weeks until I reach the correct size. Whoopie.

So she went on to say that Steve put some kind of sling underneath both breasts to minimize drooping-and that, to give her a gift, he increased her size from an A cup to a double D. I was amazed by the quality of the work. But if I had him give me a double D, I would never see my feet again. In fact, I would be so topheavy, I would be falling over all the time.

A double D-lucky woman, I guess! And no, I will not go that large. I would look ridiculous.

So three of us left the hospital together, and were laughing about being boob inspectors for the night. And now I am going to go ahead and have the surgery, because I know that Steve does good work, and I needn't worry about having one breast by my knees and the other up by my nose.

This is what I call progress!!