Throughout the Shitshow I’ve never really had “why me?” or “I wish this hadn’t happened to me” moments, but they’ve started to swirl dementor-like. Tomorrow’s my annual mammogram and ultrasound. I brought my appointment forward a couple of months so that I can speak to my oncoplastic surgeon about next-phase recon options and have the scan results to help inform my decision-making. An oncoplazzy differs from a straight-up plazzy surgeon in that they deal with the cancer as well as doing some recon. Mine did my skin-sparing mastectomy with expander but, because I had a DIEP, I then needed a surgeon who did microsurgery. As I’m early stage breast cancer, my oncoplastic is my treatment lead. She’s variously described in forums as a “pocket rocket”, which sums her up perfectly. When my first surgery date was decided she clapped her hands together: “Great, I’m excited! I can’t wait.I love being in theatre!” . That might seem a bit bish, bash, bosh for such a confronting procedure, but her no messing, go getting approach was just what I needed to hear. I desperately try to channel her matter-of-factness, but am failing quite spectacularly. This week I’ve been looking for ’signs’ of the outcome of my scans. So far things aren’t looking promising: a single magpie was sat on the garden gate this morning; they’re being done on Friday 13th; my original diagnosis was on a 13th; Sinead on Corrie has had an incurable recurrence.