Let me get this straight.
You've got a friend who has a friend who happens to be a tattoo artist who tattoos nipples on women who have lost theirs due to cancer surgery.
I say BS.
Your friend ain't in Houston. That sounds like Buffalo to me.
Au contraire mon frere!
Tattooing nipples on after breast reconstruction surgery has been around for years!! It's a wonderful thing.
A friend of mine who had a double mastectomy, had it done, and it's an incredible process.
When the doctor does the final reconstruction surgery ( a plastic surgeon) he forms a "nipple" by bringing a "twist" of skin up and through the front for properly places nipples on the breast. Granted they are not the same size as a typical female nipple, and are more similar to the general shape of a man's, but a bit larger. (I'm talking just the nipple itself).
Once the new breast and nipple have completely healed - which was a couple of months - the tattooing process starts. My friend's required several visits, as it not only a lengthy process, but it's to let the skin calm down a bit from visit to visit for proper shading. If only one breast has been removed, the tattooist tries to match the other one in color, shape and size of areole as much as possible. If both are removed, the patient looks at pictures to try to pick a "shape" and color similar to what she had, or what she would prefer, for the tattooist to copy. Also getting the color right for the patient's skin tone is important.
I was absolutely amazed at how incredible my friend's ended up looking. She did say it was pretty painful process though. I think she ended up going about 6 times. The weekend before her mastectomy, we went up to Lexington to the horse races, and the four of us sat in their hotel room "took drunk" that night to a new level. At some point during the evening, she had decided that when she had her reconstructive done, since she wouldn't have nipples anymore, she was going to have a butterfly tattooed in place of one, and a black widow spider tattooed on the other. (shots of tequila were being consumed by this point) I think her other half was pretty relieved to find out, the doctor was going to make nips for her!
Don't know if any of you have very personal knowledge of someone who has gone through this, but general surgeons doing mastectomies have become so much more focused on preserving the woman's body, body image and trying to give the plastic surgeon as much undamaged skin as possible to work with during the reconstructive process.
My friend had huge boobiez that were such a part of her personality. I'm talking 38DD's. She was not only incredibly frightened but devastated as to what would happen to her body, and whether or not her significant would stay with her. (she was about 56 at the time). When she was originally diagnosed she was told a lumpectomy, only to go to Thompson Cancer Center for a second opinion, and finds out she had a fast growing type of cancer that would require a double. The general surgeon did a diagonal incision from just in front of the point where her arm meets her body to the bottom of her sternum on each side. When the reconstructive was completed by the plastic surgeon, she had a single thin line extending from the outer edge midline to the nipple and one going down the front from only the nipple downward. They rapidly faded (surgeon said hers faded unusually quickly) and she would joke about going into the whole process "with 56 year old saggy boobiez and coming out with perky 20 yr old tits".
She did joke, but it was also almost a 3 yr ordeal from start to finish. She had wicked wicked chemo that almost killed her because someone forgot to give her some shot after her first treatment that would help her red blood cell regeneration, and she got some infection that put her in the hospital for a week and they sent her home to either kick it or it kick her (
). She was not able to have another chemo for 2 months, that we all had to beg her to take, cause she was justifiably terrified that another one would definitely kill her. She then had to wait for 6 months after the last chemo treatment before the plastic surgeon would start the reconstructive, which took another year.
As much as I don't like that the Komen Foundation contributes to Planned Parenthood, they have done a great deal to help fund breast cancer research which also includes the reconstructive process. When 1 out of every 8 women get breast cancer these days, we women need all the help we can get from any source, to get through a catastrophic disease.
