My Milkshake Brings All The Boys to the Yard - By Holly Searle

Here is the news.


After deciding on the living tissue option to reconstruct my left breast, I then had misgivings. The thought of having a ten hour operation to enable this in addition to another incision and scar on my torso, seemed quite overwhelming.

No, I thought, the best option would be to shorten the time spent on the table, and to have an implant.

But then I attended a seminar at the Maggie's center based at Charing Cross Hospital, held and given by the plastic surgeon in charge of these operations.

Go, my nurse told me, as you might change your mind.

So I did.

The seminar's are a great idea for those of us still shell shocked by having breast cancer and its consequences. A one hour gig delivered by the man who carries out these reconstruction ops, featuring before and after images of women who have been through both options.

They are a center of boob excellence here and painstakingly take their time to tell you EVERYTHING. Don't buy a white mastectomy post op bra as it will just go grey from all of the washing we are informed.

The images are quite graphic and harrowing. I try to divorce myself from their surgical mutilations and focus of the after images where you would never be able to guess what once transpired to the women who feature on this Power Point presentation.

But as I sat there, I thought to my self, do I want all of this? Who is this reconstruction for? It won't even be the final score. Oh no, that comes after they check out, what they took out. This is just the removal and replacement operation.

No one every looks at my boobs these days apart from me.

I ask myself, am I really that bothered? Then I think, yes, I bloody well am.

Who knows, maybe one day, apart from the surgeons, nurses, doctors and all the other hospital staff, that have already had the pleasure of poking and prodding my breast, to draw their diagnostic conclusions, someone else might like to inspect it for more pleasurable reasons.


But l will be bothered, as I will have to look at either an empty desolate space that will be devoid of what was once was there.

Or, l can look at a similar amalgamation that has replaced it.

But more than that, I don't really want to have this fecking cancer or have my favourite breast removed. I don't want to be sitting in a room with a group of strangers looking at images of women who have been changed so radically by cancer.

This breast fed my babies. It was always more reliable than the other one, it never let me down and now it has.

So, l have no choice but to allow its removal. Its nasty hidden contents banished to histology where my post op fate will be decided.

When the plastic surgeon explains that the living tissue op takes less time than first anticipated, and that implants will need to be replaced in 15 years (plus it won't age and I will), I decide to go with the living tissue option. This option is also what they term surface. It's literally not brain surgery.

The surgeon explains that they identify a fat profitable location of your body: inner thigh, bum or tummy (I am rich in all of these areas – who knew), remove it and relocate it to where the carcinogenic breast is/was. They then create a new breast. Later after this has settled down, you return for a second op to have both breasts aligned. Then, you return at a later date to has either a prosthetic nipple added and or tattoo.

Blimey. It's a lot to mentally digest.

And the way I deal it is by focusing on the next bit. I quite like a point of reference.

After the seminar I see the surgeon. I tell him that I would like the living tissue op. He calls a nurse in and I take my clothes off for another stranger. He measures my breasts and then checks out the fat deposit on my stomach. Phew, there is enough there.

He leaves me alone with the nurse. She's lovely. I say 'I knew there was a reason for eating all those biscuits.' She laughs.

My op is scheduled for June 25th. Before then, I will have to attend another scan to locate the blood vessels in my tum. But for now, I have a beacon to head towards.

I will be hospitalized for five days (please visit). I will then need five to six weeks to recover. I am not too sure how I am going to manage this money wise as my income pays for our life. But, Macmillan offer directional help for you in these situations. So I will call them, call my mortgage provider and get this all set in place before my op.

Six weeks ago, I was diagnosed with Early Stage Breast Cancer. Fingers crossed in five weeks time, they'll get it all out of my body. Then I will face the next bit with my head up and my sore, but replacement boob.

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Op - By Holly Searle

So, I still have cancer, only it's bigger, 5 x bigger than they initially thought.

My doctor, a lovely human being, interrupted the already planned pre op tests and scheduled operation, by sending me off to have a Breast MRI.

I am ridiculously claustrophobic. If you are looking for an additional member for your pot holing team, please don't ask me. I hate small confined places as much as I hate the way this cancer has caused chaos in my life.

Before the MRI, I asked my GP to prescribe me something to help me get through it. But then I think about the night that follows this MRI and how I have a piece of artwork in a group exhibition in London opening that evening. I want to go, but I don't want to be off my face when I attend. So I decide to do the MRI cold turkey and it's just awful. After 20 minutes in there laying face down with my boobs in a cage, I get them to pull me out. The lady tells me not to worry as not everyone can do MRI's. I say what happens next, she says that they need to inject me with radioactive liquid and take images to see if the dye flags up any additional cancer. How long will it take I ask, my claustrophobia is manageable as long as I know EXACTLY what is happening, why and how long it will take.

I strike a deal with the guy in charge of the MRI. I ask him to let me know when there is 5 minutes left. He agrees. So with the canular inserted in my arm and pumping radioactive dye (which I taste as it passes through my body), I lay there hyperventilating with my eyes tightly shut, until he calls time.

When it's over, I cry, as I hate MRI's and the fact that having cancer has made me endure this one.

I try to brave it at the gallery that evening, but I am exhausted. When I get home, I worry that I am trying to do too much: work, be an artist, deal with cancer.


I sleep well that night and silently pat myself on the back.

The MRI reveals that the cancer is much bigger and this changes everything.

So instead of having my intended op, I have a further biopsies to determine the parameter of the newly discovered super size cancer. This involves having my left breast numbed and then having a long needle inserted and a staple gun snap when they take the sample. Five of these I don't feel, one I do and nearly pass and or throw up due to the pain.

I feel violated even though I know all these nice people are doing all of this to help me battle this nasty mutation in my body.

You're being so brave the lady tells me.

I don't feel brave, I feel like running away. I feel like screaming PLEASE STOP THIS MADNESS.

So today is the first of many High Noon days I am sure I will have to face over the coming months.

My surgeon tells me that after all these additional tests, it is bigger and that this means I will have to have a mastectomy. My oldest friend has accompanied to this appointment and I hear her sharp intake of breath from the other side of the examination curtain that divides us.

My brain swirls. Reconstruction I ask? Yes he says, we can actually do both at the same time. We discuss an implant option against the benefits of a living tissue one. With the living tissue, they take the fat off of your belly. Win win I think. New boob AND a flatter tummy. How lucky am I?

Ironically the fat on my belly is a result of the HRT, which could also have caused my cancer.

But this is a 10 hour operation. Prior to this I will have to attend a kind of lecture at Charing Cross Hospital to explain the entire cancer journey, options and out come.

I may change my mind after I have attended this. I won't know until I do.

It's all been an emotional roller coaster, one that I can only deal with by focusing on the fact that all rides must end at some point.

Everyone has been amazing. Everyday I get support and love (and tears) from family and friends.

PLEASE keep that coming. It's making this all so much easier to bare knowing that you all are.

C is For Cancer By Holly Searle

So, I have cancer.

How scary is that word?

When the consultant told me, I didn't hear another word he said after he said that word.

My mind just went into overdrive.

Am I going to die?

Is this how I am going to die?

Really?

Is this it?

How bad is it?

CANCER?

What the fuck.

The nurse found a room for us to talk in. The first thing she said was 'Well you probably didn't hear a word he said after he said the word Cancer. BUT, I am going to run through it all with you, so you understand exactly what is going on'.

And so she did.

I have Invasive Ductal Carcinoma.

It's in my left breast. It's small, early and treatable.

If you could want to choose which cancer to have, it would be this one she said.

But I was still thinking, really, cancer?

My mind works like this: the day before I was told I had cancer, I knew nothing about it, but today I do. So I just need to know what and how to proceed from this point on to resolve it. I am the same person as I was yesterday, I now just have something else to deal with.

Then, I started to think emotionally about it.

I would quite like to be really old when I die. I would like to watch my grandchildren grow-up and see them blossom. I would like to see my son graduate from University and continue to be so so proud of my daughter's incredible ambition.

I would like to travel a bit more and finally move into a house with a garden and be kissed passionately by an as yet, unknown lover.

These are all of the thoughts that are knocking on the door of the cancer space in my head. I can't let those thoughts in right now until I know I am going to get rid of this parasite that has become an unwelcome guest in my body.

My surgeon asked me if I would like to feel the lump. I didn't really want too as I would rather not acknowledge its existence in my life: by doing that, would be having to admit to it being real. But, I did and it is.

What a massive pile of crap that is.

I am just going through the motions.

Because it is small, early and treatable, the prognosis based on all the science, looks good. However, until I have my initial op and the results that follow on from it, I am still holding my mental breath. I have pacified those knocking thoughts for now by posting a note on the door that simply says ' You'll know when I do.'

I know that cancer doesn't always equal death, but I think a lot of people do draw that conclusion. I know this from the reactions I have received. But, I also think that is the reaction that they would have if they had been given the news themselves.

I have never had cancer before and I hope I never have it again. I want it gone as I have too much to do.

As I have got older I have realised that the value of time and how and I spend it is the only currency of worth in my life, and I am going to spend as little of it as I possibly can on and with this cancer. It can do one.

It has certainly made me think about the relevant and irreverent on a daily basis, so much so that I wonder why I hadn't thought like that before.

For now, the future is several appointments prior to surgery and then then more pathology results, followed by (fingers crossed) some intense radiotherapy. Then, touch wood, my surgeon tells me that it should be as though I never had it.

Small, early, treatable.

He said to me 'Someone is watching over you, not once but twice. Once because you were called back, and twice because it is so small.'

Just between us, for a man of science to tell me this, gives me hope.