Spare a thought for the brain surgeons

"It's not rocket science" we say. "It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work that out". But sometimes it is, and it does. Birgit Djkstra, my fabulous surgeon, really earned her money on Tuesday. And the anaesthetist Tom Studholme was pretty cool too. He assured me he hadn't been drinking the night before, and promised to take good care of me. The odds that he would completely screw up and kill me are 1 in 100,000. We decided that Tuesday was not my day to die. And so it turned out.


Birgit could move into manufacturing if the surgeon's life gets boring. My chest (on the right) is absolutely beautiful. Imagine a perfectly smooth, perfectly flat, sheet of the finest linen. That's me. The left hand side is somewhat spoilt by a boob. It's inching its way around the corner towards my back like a small jelly edging towards the side of a plate. If my nipple was a headlight I'd not be getting a warrant of fitness - it's more interested in what's happening on the footpath than the road straight ahead of me. I much prefer the work of a master craftswoman. Birgit has visited every day at 7am to check my progress, an enchanting mix of efficiency and care.


Some people are called to do the things in life that require the utmost focus, and care; attention to detail where the margins for error are slim and the consequences of mistakes monumental. They train for thousands of hours and then dispense their wisdom and display their skill in the most trying of circumstances. In my view, every dollar is deserved.