Seems I got a bit excited. The bra was yet to come.

Later that evening Dr D popped in to check on things (looking like he could do with a very strong coffee to get through the final surgery he had to perform for the day..I mean that in the nicest possible way of course!). He seemed surprised that I’d been up and showered and sternly instructed the nurse to ensure the waterproof dressing was put in place asap (oops..).

He put some big strips of supportive tape along the outside edge of my right breast, pulling things into the centre rather firmly. As Dr D flew back to the operating theatre, the nurse taped up the other side and helped me get into the zip & buckle up bra.

It was getting late. I was left with my oxygen, push button pain relief and a flimsy curtain separating me from my not-so-well-mannered neighbour who moaned throughout the night. Ohh – she also felt it necessary to make demands on the nurses each time they popped in for the two-hourly obs ‘get me morphine’ she bellowed….. It was a long, looong night.

Yep, next week will be round five.
Explaining this could be rather detailed – but in short, these implants are coming out and new ones are going in. In fact, the consent form says ‘remove and replace implants’.
I’ve been in two minds about this for a while now. As you may recall my ‘adjustment’ to this new body hasn’t been as smooth as I would like. Not long after the reconstruction Dr D cottoned on to this and said we could go back in and try and refine things. I very quickly snapped no, that I’d had enough surgery and I just needed to let my head catch up with what the body has been through. I’m almost ashamed to admit that unfortunately (not for a lack of trying), that hasn’t happened over the past few months.

A recent appointment brought the issues to the surface. Try as I might to just suck it up and well, not love – but just feel good about things, I couldn’t. Don’t get me wrong – I’m incredibly grateful to be here and on most days view my scars almost as kind of battle wounds, that through them – I’ve been given the best chance at a long and healthy future. It’s actually not the scars. The position, shape, ripples, distortion and an unsightly divet of my new ‘breast mounds’ are taking some getting used to. (This all sounds so much worse than it is!) Most of the time I’m okay, but occasionally it all is too much. The disbelief I feel is enormous.

I’d been keeping my mouth shut, so as not to offend Dr D. This was his work – he’s worked so hard to re-build me and here I was not handling the end result. How dare I? What an ungrateful sod.

He’s most perceptive and as I removed my gown he started with ‘we can do this, this and this….’ I was so relieved, I got a bit emotional and nearly cried (after all of this – it’s the first time I’d come close and I didn’t want him or Andrea to see me cry!). In a very business-like manner we talked about the ‘tweaking’ as he called it.

On leaving, Dr D reinforced that it’s okay, they often do revisions of reconstruction and that if I don’t tell him – he doesn’t know.

So – he knows. I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted and am now ready to focus on fine-tuning.

Today, marks a year since I sat in Dr D’s rooms and heard the term DCIS for the first time.

That’s the day my life changed forever (the significant changes to my body of course came later, another bizarre kind of anniversary to mark).

No shock, no fear, no grief, no sadness – just relief he was detailing what could be done to prevent it from progressing to the next stage and determination to get the process underway. Boy, did I feel lucky.

The sadness and at times disbelief is only just starting to seep in. What a year?!

For as long as I live I think April 23 – date of diagnosis, May 20 – date of bilateral mastectomy (plus to a lesser degree the surrounding dates on which I had the lumpectomies, partial mastectomy and later the reconstruction) will always hold a bit of a heavy, painful weight. It thankfully will be balanced by the gratefulness I feel to be here.

Thanks again, to everyone involved. Happy Anniversary.

Certainly not me, or anyone who knows me well.

12 months ago to the day, it was just like any other day (Friday) at work. I was fulfilling my role as News Director dealing with the station’s operational requirements, then methodically assessing releases, doing interviews, editing grabs, writing content, pulling together rundowns and presenting news during the drive show (I was covering Ange’s leave in this timeslot) with Mal Lees and Luke Bradnam.

The 6pm bulletin came and went – at the end of which, Luke – with whom I’d worked since day one at Hot Tomato, casually said (whilst still on-air) “so that’s it Katie, another week?” My response was an off-the-cuff “…yeah, this is my last bulletin with you guys”. “Whadda ya mean? EVER?” Luke quizzed. “No, I’m just off for a couple of weeks, on leave”, I replied.

I was going to have those bi-lateral lumpectomies on the Monday. Surgery booked. No big deal. Just wanted the lumps out.

Despite the four months of backwards-and-forwards, different scans, mammogram, biopsies etc. I think there were two things going on at that point; I may have known deep down there was a lot more than just a fortnight’s leave in store, and perhaps – somewhere in my consciousness I did realise that yes – that may in fact have been my last bulletin.

There’s part of me that is still obviously grieving for that ‘some sort of normal’ that I was so comfortable with. I do miss being on-air – it’s a tremendous buzz and something I worked very hard at, I always tried to do well, then do better.

Today however, as I mourn that particular career (and let myself indulge in a little moment of ‘geez, it’s sad…..I really loved it’), I began a trek down another path. I did my first media interviews as the spokesperson for the Gold Coast office of Cancer Council Queensland. Here am I answering the questions rather than asking them, crafting a response in order to push a key message, rather than searching for a compelling and easy to understand statement (grab), and having a good old belly laugh at the irony!

With the help of my oh-so-funny physiotherapist Tanya – things are slowly getting back on track.

Tanya has very quickly cottoned onto the fact that I’m a determined and somewhat pig-headed kinda girl. When I’m ‘in the zone’ things at pilates go well, when I can’t shake a headache or don’t really feel like doing a particular exercise (for very good reason of course!), there’s no making me.

We share lots of laughs while navigating our way through exercises including ‘elephant’, ‘nasty tummies’ and ‘pole dancing’!

It’s actually become a bit of a family affair, with Paul joining us once a week and having survived her initial consultation – my Mum will also be coming along on a regular basis.