Thank you so much for all the advice and kind words. The op on Tuesday afternoon went well enough; apparently the first thing I did in the recovery room was look down my front and start screaming "It's gone! It's gone!". Nextstep, you are so right about being grateful to have the use of one arm, it has been a godsend and the surgeons were right not to let me have a bilateral mastectomy. I haven't worn a bra yet - I had no dressings on my wound at all, and the surface layer is glued together with no sutures or staples. I also had no drains (apparently they're going out of fashion!) so have probably got off quite easily. There has been some fluid build up, which at one stage was so uncomfortable they were on the brink of taking me back into surgery, but decided to give me nerve-blocking injections across my chest and monitor me for the morning after the op. When the swelling didn't increase, they decided to let me go home with pain relief.
It's been very up and down since I came out on Wednesday, and I've had good days and bad days, as I'd expected. The wound, whilst spectacular, doesn't upset me at all, nor does the fact that I don't have a breast on the left side. Female Amazon warriors would have their left breasts cut off so that they could wear their arrow holders (can't remember what they're called!), and so I consider it to be my Amazon Warrior Wound. It will be nice when I can wear a bra to support the other side, though!
I'm having my wound checked on Monday, and get my results on Friday of this week, so not too much waiting to go now.