Christina is a woman who is full of life and says ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. She tells me about the train, the train that raced from breast cancer diagnosis, being sick, recovery and breast reconstruction to 9 years later, the nipple tattoo. And why, after 9 years, did she still opt for a nipple tattoo? A quick look back.
“I looked at myself in the mirror, I remember it well. It was 2013, I was standing in the bathroom and saw something abnormal just under my right breast, like the skin was slightly crumpled, a crumpled piece of paper.” She googled and saw the same thing in photos of other women. ‘Woman and age over 60? Contact GP immediately.‘ “And I just thought, it’s been there for several weeks…”.
Pretty soon she was able to go for the first mammogram and then the train started moving. Breast cancer was diagnosed.
All her grief and emotions surrounding being sick, having breast cancer, Christina processes through creating art. She made this pen drawing, a sketch, when she had just heard about the breast cancer.
In late February 2013, Christina had surgery, a breast-saving operation and only that crumpled piece was removed. No radiation or chemo would be needed. Or.
It was Saturday 2 March when the surgeon came to her and told her that after examination of the sentinel gland, metastases to lymph and a tumour had been found. “Until that moment, I was euphoric, felt healed and I would be allowed to go home to celebrate my birthday on March 4. But everything turned out differently… They told me that the whole breast had to be removed AND an axillary toilet. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy would also be required.”
The day before the mastectomy, she very consciously said goodbye to her right breast “I stood in front of the mirror and said to my breast ‘tomorrow you won’t be here’. I said goodbye.”
It was a tough journey for Christina. “All those times when I came to the hospital for tests, treatments and chemo, I was sitting with women of somewhere around 30, I was already 63 and I felt sorry for them. Many of them go straight into menopause because of those treatments. That does something to you as a woman, being young and already at menopause.”
The hospital showed the many sides of life, of illness, death and life. Because just after the amputation, her son and daughter-in-law came with the happy news that a grandson was on the way. An ultrasound printout was proof of that. Just after Christina’s last chemo, her grandson was born.
For dessert followed a hormone treatment, which she stopped early in consultation with the supervising doctor. The hormone treatment made her gloomy and her body ached.
After 3 years of illness, cures and recovery, Christina consulted Dr Peeters for breast reconstruction. This involved two major surgeries, followed by a minor procedure to reconstruct ‘the tuut’, the nipple. She was so tired of all that surgery and tinkering with her body. Even a nipple tattoo was too much.
And yet certain events made her think. For instance, when her granddaughter looked at her in the mirror and asked “Grandma, is your bommie (breast) broken off?”. Christina burst out laughing. When she saw grandma without a wig, another question popped up: “But grandma, did you become a boy?” Christina laughed, explained and told her sweet granddaughter that things will work out in the end.
Again, she is with Dr Peeters who compliments her. He sees a Christina who is more radiant and even looks younger than 7 years ago. Now she comes to him to finish it off; she wants the nipple tattoo now. “I am doing it for myself. Back then I was alone and that’s how I felt, I lived through everything alone, why should I do a nipple tattoo, for whom?” Now it felt different. He referred her to Janny Hanegraaf, Permanently Beautiful.
Now Christina did opt for the nipple tattoo. Self-love was decisive in this: “Loving my body and realising what my body has been through. What I have been through in my life. I now say ‘Yes I am worth it! A new nipple is the icing on the cake’.”
In 2021, Christina started therapy, brainspotting, a therapy for processing acquired trauma. She came back to herself. She now does more with yoga, taichi and meditates. “I can be alone better now and I feel I enjoy being alone. I am happy with who I am. And I realise that sometimes it takes pain and suffering to realise what we all have. I was now ready to complete my body again with the nipple tattoo.”
The nipple tattoo is beautiful, eventually her son gave this gift. This proud Christina told me her story. And the scars left on her body tell her the story of her life. And the train, it moves forward at a brisk pace.
By: Lenie van der Zande (COMM-ON+)
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Recommends nipple tattoo:
All women I recommend the nipple tattoo. You feel much more feminine and close to yourself again after going to Janny.
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