‘Here’s why I need to be fatter ’

Did you ever think to yourself: “Damn! I wish I had a bit more jiggly fat on me”?

Well, let me tell you, I didn’t. In fact, I’ve sadly had a deeply ambivalent relationship with ice cream and all other good things since I was 14, when my doctor told me my weight was “off-the-chart” – he literally pointed to a graph taped to his desk indicating a girl of 5ft should be 100lb, and for each inch more, another 5lb. At 5’2”, I weighed 112lb.

If only he had said, “You know, one day, you might wish for a bit more jiggly fat on you.”

Guess what? When I had a mastectomy revision, that day came.

Preparing for the procedure, I searched up “fat grafting”. In one video, a doctor pumps out a woman’s belly fat and uses it to fill the “imperfections” on her reconstructed breasts (which are barely noticeable). “So, we grafted 150 millilitres on this side,” he explains when he’s done one breast, adding: “It’s not meant to make it much, much bigger, just to fix the contour issues.”

He then adds 150 millilitres to the other breast.

The woman in the video is slimmer than me. Surely, I thought, I have at least a litre (2lb) of fat on offer.

That’s good, because nearly half of it can be lost in the purification process, and as much as 60 per cent to reabsorption by the body. You really don’t get a lot of bang for your fat.

The morning of my surgery, I thought of the video. “You have options,” the patient opines, speaking directly into the camera. “You don’t have to accept your body being destroyed after a mastectomy.” She tells us to advocate for ourselves.

She looks Jewish. Or maybe I’m projecting. In any case, I had done what she said. I examined, for the last time, the ripples and divots on my reconstructed breasts, the radiated one being particularly afflicted. There’s more than cosmetics at stake here; the radiation can continue to damage the area for years and lead to major surgeries. This procedure, at least, is pretty minor.

Nurses came in and out of my room and asked my name, birthday, and address 100 times.

They weighed me and checked my height in case I’d grown since the pre-op a week earlier.

The breast surgeon and plastic surgeon arrived, and the latter asked me to take off my gown. He held an open marker but instead of drawing on my outer thighs, the area we had discussed at our first meeting, he paused. He leaned in, pursing his lips, and made small ovals on my inner thighs.

The plastic surgeon was not a great communicator. I was reminded of my eldest son who, every time I ask him anything, sighs, “Ugh, it’s too hard to explain.” Still, I got the gist of his gestures and mumbling. My juicy, zaftig outer thighs have the wrong kind of fat; using liposuction on them would be difficult and lead to bad scarring.

He wanted only jiggly bits.

I thought quickly. Due to monthly abdominal injections, my belly was out. But, how about my waist?

I pinched my sides and thought of a commercial for the breakfast cereal Special K that was popular around the same time I was told my weight was off the chart: “You can’t pinch an inch on me,” went the jingle.

"You can pinch an inch on me."

He added circles on my sides and was gone.

After the surgery, the breast surgeon said it went well. My eyes were barely open, and still, I could tell she was being hesitant. I waited.

“We didn’t get that much fat,” she admitted.

Maybe they didn’t get a whole litre after all. 500 millilitres? Four? “How much did you get?” I rasped at last.

“57 millilitres.”

I made her repeat this number. “We put the majority –39mililitres – into the radiated breast,” she said. I did the maths. After absorption that makes… about 16 millilitres.

Will 16 millilitres of fat do the job of mitigating radiation damage? Was going under and getting stabbed and prodded and sewn up and sleeping in compression undergarments and not exercising for a month worth it for 16 millilitres?

It’s hard to know, but you can bet I’m hoping. If not, we’ll try again. In the meantime, I should probably build up my jiggly fat. Please send ice cream.