Little and large - my mismatched boob nightmare!

Monday 18th June 2007

Leigh Bartholomew, 21, from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, hated her mismatched boobs - one was an A cup, the other a D. When she married her husband Phil, Leigh felt she could finally move on. But her problems were only just beginning...

Lots of things in life don't match, do they? Your lottery numbers with a winning ticket, socks, CDs to a CD case. But boobs? Boobs should definitely match. I know sometimes women have one that's slightly bigger than the other, but when it came to mine, Mother Nature wasn't just playing a cruel trick, she was having a flamin' laugh.

My right boob was a tiny A-cup, while the left was a whopping D-cup. Ever since I'd sprouted, at the age of 13, I'd learned to laugh about it.
'I know, I know,' I'd joke to mates when they saw me in a bikini. 'It's a wonder I don't walk round in circles.'

But I wasn't joking when I first met my husband, Phil Skingle, 23, in March 2001.
'I look like a circus freak,' I warned him when we started getting close.
'It can't be that bad, babe,' he'd said.
'It is,' I'd insisted. 'One of my boobs is huge, and the other is really small.'
'Lucky me, I've got the best of both worlds, then,' he grinned.

Bless him. True to his word, he'd been nothing but supportive. He'd helped me draft a letter
to my GP to see if I qualified for a £4,000 operation on the NHS for corrective surgery. And he dried my eyes when they wrote back saying they didn't have the funding.

After that, he'd worked all the hours God sent as a mechanic, so we could try and claw together enough savings to pay for me to have the op privately. It was hopeless. By the time
I'd paid my share of the bills from my job doing admin for a window repair company, there was never anything left. No matter how hard we tried, I seemed no closer to having matching boobs than I was at 13.

And now it seemed Phil's sympathy had run out. The row had started over something silly, and swiftly escalated into World War III.
'It's all right for you,' I screamed. 'You're not living with a disability!'
Phil's face went purple with rage.
'I'm tired of hearing about how desperate you are for surgery,' he shouted back.
The words were out, the damage was done, and there was no turning back. Maybe my boobs had been forcing us apart for years?

After nearly three years of marriage, I had no choice but to move back in with my mum, Anna, 39, in June 2006. I'd been single all of a week, when one of the window fitters at work, Dave Whitcomb, 26, asked me out.
'It's only fair to warn you. My jumper's hiding a terrible secret,' I joked.
'Perhaps your jumper should unburden itself then,' he grinned.

He asked for it. Before I could change my mind, I whisked my top up, and revealed my wonky boobs. Dave's eyes went out on stalks.
'Whoa. You weren't kidding,' he laughed.
But he was totally unfazed, and over a drink that evening, he turned serious.
'This has ruined your life for long enough. Maybe it's time to do something about it,' he said.
'Do you know what?' I smiled. 'You're right.'

The very next day, I booked an appointment to see a private surgeon in London. Not only did they promise to do the operation, but they offered to find me a loan to pay for it. Finally it was happening.

I booked the operation two weeks later for 5 December, 2006 in their clinic in Brussels. I was going to have matching implants in both boobs, and an uplift. But a few days later, I got a letter confirming the approved loan would be £3,000 less than the £6,000 I needed.

I was devastated. I called my dad, Tony, 42, crying hysterically.
'It's OK,' he said. 'I'll put it all on my credit card.'
I couldn't have been more grateful.

The day before my operation, Dad and Dave drove me all the way to Brussels to save on the airfare. It took us a full day, but I didn't care. All I could think about was having my dream boobs. At the clinic, the consultant explained I'd have my small boob boosted to a D-cup, and a matching implant and uplift in my bigger one.

As I drifted off, I had a big smile on my face. I didn't come round smiling though. I was screaming in agony. Pain clawed at my chest. Just moving an inch felt like someone was stabbing me.
'It's OK, love. We're going to take you home,' Dad said.
Covered in bandages, I hobbled to the car. The day-long journey seemed to take years.
When we finally reached home, I was so relieved I crawled into bed. The pain was out of this world.

Dave took care of me. But after a week, when I should have been feeling better, I was clutching my bandaged chest in agony.
'Make it stop,' I howled.
I popped painkillers like Smarties, and took my antibiotics like clockwork. After another week of endless, searing pain, I was going out of my mind.
'Perhaps I should take a look?' Dave suggested.
Speechless with pain, I pulled back my dressing.
The colour drained from his face.
'Let's get in the car,' he said, like he was speaking to a child. 'Best let the hospital check it over.'

Dave drove like a maniac to Southend Hospital, and as we waited to get registered at A&E,
I looked down at my bandaged chest in horror. Yellow, green and orange pus was seeping through the bandages. It looked like someone had turned a multi-coloured tap on under my clothes.

I was rushed into a side room. When the nurse looked at my wounds, she was horrified.
'You're badly infected. Who did this to you?' she gasped.
'I had it done privately,' I admitted.
She cleaned the area and sent me home with antibiotics strong enough to cure a horse.
But a few days later, as I stepped out of the bath, Dave spotted something else.
'Hold on,' he said, peering closely. 'There's a hole the size of a two pence piece under your right boob!'
I rushed to have a look in the mirror, and felt like gagging.
Dave took me to see an out-of-hours doctor.
'We can't stitch you up,' she said, looking at my boob. 'Go back to the people who did this.'

So I called the clinic. They prescribed more antibiotics to get rid of the infection, and booked me in for scar correction surgery. Gutted doesn't even cover it. Three months on, I'm still in agony, but I need to work, otherwise I won't be able to cover the repayments to Dad.

Dave's been an angel, looking after me and trying to cheer me up. But at the end of the day, I wish I'd just left well alone. Wonky boobs have got to be better than this.

Check out our other stories about people with unusual bodies:

The world's smallest mum

My son was too big to live

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