I’ve got a tiny bit of a stitch poking out through the incision that the eternally fabulous Dr Fat Biscuits made to create my new nipple. Now, bearing in mind it’s 5 weeks since my last op and all other visible bits of stitches have fallen off and disappeared, I reckoned I’d be okay by now to ‘worry it’ a bit.  Now before you all start sniggering let me explain…. when I had my two week, post op follow up with Dr FB, I asked him if my stitches were soluble or not. To which he replied, that yes they were and now I was past the critical two weeks healing I could start ‘worrying them a bit’. This was too much to ignore, I tittered (pun intended)…. ‘Worry them a bit?’ I asked. Smiling gamely.

“Yes,’ he said. ‘Just a little.’

“What like tell them they smell or that Santa isn’t real?”

Dr FB: … *stares

Me: *deadpan face*

You get the gist.

Anyway, back to the teeny tiny bit of stitch. I managed to get hold of the end of it with some tweezers, which for someone who lacks coordination at the best of times and while working in the bathroom mirror, because it was too awkward to look down at that angle while getting said tweezers in position, was a feat in itself. I gave it a bit of a tug. Nothing. Bit harder. Still nothing. Now seriously what is the other end tied to? My toes, my spine at the very least. The Great fucking Wall of China? Consequently I keep checking it out to see if it’s fallen out of its own accord. Has it buggery. Puh-ting.

In June I’m having the areola bit tattooed so aside from all the scars from one side to the other and two more; one for where the implant was inserted and the other to cut a slivver of skin to form the nipple, no one would be any the wiser. Chortle….as if.

I’m now imagining this bit of catgut like stitch poking through a posh dress over the summer or catching passing bits of fluff like a stray carpet tack. This thing has to go…. I’m not sure what else to try?

Anyway, back to the boobs and life post op number 8, all I can say is that they’re healing nicely, still swollen as you’d expect and the arm stiffness isn’t too bad and halle-bloody-lujah I can now exercise again. So this week I’ve done three runs and a swim and pulled a muscle on my left bum cheek. Okay so I over did it, but after four sedentary dull as fuck weeks, mostly spent coughing my lungs up and two cougho-pukes, due to yet another insanely bad post op chest infection, I was as they say in polite circles, gagging for it. A run that is.

In fact the boob healing was fine, my arse cheeks looked like a stray baboon from the fat transfer bruising,  but the constant coughing to the point of barfing not so good. Two lots of antibiotics, two weeks of steroids, three bottles of cough syrup and a shit ton of tissues and late night cups of hot tea and Manuka honey, and I was just about able to lie down without my breathing gurgling and crackling. I am so sexy right now, what with my scratchy pokey-out stitch tit, and the whiff of codeine linctus. Which yes it does bung you up, but fortunately constant coughing counteracts that side effect. Ho hum. I am just the expert on all major forms of illness induced bum trauma.

Back to this week, am off to Berlin  for a long weekend and am hoping it will be dry and that unlike the time I went to Barcelona and I don’t have to pour water out of my shoes when I get back to the hotel. I’m also going to a Chopin concert, mitt feuerwerken no less. Which I assume means fireworks or sausages. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get both to be honest.

I’ve also signed up for a year’s course in fundraising and marketing. So all those of you who I previously told to shoot me at point blank range, if I ever signed up for another course…. where the bloody hell were you? Most of you know that charity stuff has always been close to my heart so I plan on just enjoying it and hope it will help with my work as a trustee.

Other than that in another month I will be having my first annual review since finishing chemo and having a mastectomy. It’s been a long year; sometimes it feels like a sort of limbo, never quite feeling tiptop before the next Herceptin injection or next op. I think it is coming up to close on a year ago that I puked and pooed like a belt fed spray gun all over Milton Keynes A&E. At least these days I make it to the khazi with time to spare. Still not that keen on peanuts, mind.

I know I’ve still got a long way to go, the recovery process from chemotherapy alone is at least another year away, never mind Herceptin and all the drugs and surgery. My GP asked me the other week as I sat coughing in her surgery,

“Have you ever seen someone with really bad eczema?’

“Yes” I said. To which she replied, ‘Well that’s what your lungs look like so you need to be patient and give them time to recover and heal.”

Cancer the devious bastard has already had 20 months of my life so far, and now that the big fat wanky bit is over I reckon I can handle the slowly feeling better bit.

Who wouldn’t eh? Onwards and upwards, mitt feurwerken.