Page 228 - She's One Crazy Lady!

He soon came to find out that in order to raise funds we sometimes had to do a few crazy things...
We were presenting him with a cheque for £10,000 one day and his Staff (not us) had called in the television people – BBC Look North. He told me afterwards that his family saw him in a different light following this! The TV people (and an Asian network who had also been invited) wanted us to go over to the Nelson Mandela Park opposite the hospital to film some ‘fun’ footage and do their interviews – a park that had a lot of swings and slides ... Yes, you’ve got it – Marilyn and I had to go on
all of them with Mr Varma pushing us on the swings! A top consultant pushing his patient on swings!! Embarrassed as he was (as were we!) he was such a good sport. It didn’t end there. Having been interviewed, Marilyn and I were asked to link arms and do a Morecambe and Wise ‘Bring Me Sunshine’ sketch along a path to end the feature! It wasn’t until we got home and saw it on the TV that we saw how embarrassing it really, really was!! Marilyn never forgave me. The two minute slot was the talk of the Plastics Department and I have to laugh whenever I see the real Morecambe and Wise doing their thing!
Jenny and Margaret and other nurses on the Unit became involved as did Claire, the Ward Sister who had helped to look after me. Matt Pilling (who worked in the Maxiofacial Department and was instrumental, with Claire, in setting up their nipple tattooing system), came on board too and signed me up for having my new nipple tattooed so that I could talk about the procedure to other patients.
Mum, bless her, when I told her I was going to Leicester to have a tattoo, was quite animated, thinking I was going to have a dolphin or a butterfly etched on to my new boob! Then she was worried that it meant another anaesthetic! I put her right and again, like she did whenever I had to have something done she said, “I wish I could have it done for you.” It always made me chuckle!
The tattooing process was another first for me. I’d read articles about tattoos. I’d read about how the art of having a tattoo is performed and I’d seen many tattoos. Personally, I don’t like them and would never have one but this was for medical reasons – with just a little vanity involved.
Sitting in a dentist’s chair in the Maxiofacial Department of LRI, with both boobs exposed, Claire and Matt explained that they would be mixing up a dye to get the right colour to match the areola on my good one. They used a fine needle to inject the dye but, with my reconstructed
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