It's the disbelief, mostly

I was chatting away this afternoon to friends blithely talking about mastectomy and breast reconstruction. and then I remembered it wasn't abstract, we were talking about me.

i even find i can tell people quite calmly that what i am going into hospital for is a mastectomy. but it still doesn't reach up and slap me - this is me it's happening to.

I know so much more about what is going to happen to me on Thursday, but i still can't quite connect it to *me*. this really can't be happening to me, can it?

so today i read some more about DCIS, and again I'm feeling incredibly lucky that I have the Paget's as well. without the Paget's, we wouldn't know about this until my first NHS mammogram when i'm 50. that could be too late. or not. but it could defnitely be too late for a tram flap reconstruction. you see, i'm very young, in fact i'm so young that it makes much more sense for the NHS to spend a fortune on me now, so that they don't have to keep having me back every 10 or 15 years for the rest of my life to have revisions on an implant. do you know, i think after the 2nd revision, i'd just tell them to forget it and i'd be a real amazon. i wonder how many other women feel like that?

i'm probably including all the names so you can google them if you want to.

my parents arrive tomorrow norming. did i mention more than 600 times that tomorrow is my birthday? i'll be 42. life the universe and everything will be mine tomorrow.

i don't think i'm going to complete my breastfeeding counsellor training. i'll stay a peer supporter.

i feel much better that i breastfed my boys for a total of three and a half years. evil breast did good things before it became evil.

but i breastfed for three and a half years. and i have cancer cells in my milk ducts. where's the bloody justice in the world, eh?