See How These Breast Cancer Survivors Turned Their Mastectomy Scars Into Art with Stunning Tattoos (Exclusive)

• More than 140,000 women undergo mastectomy annually
• Non-profit organization Personal Ink (P.ink) helps breast cancer survivors turn their scars into art by connecting them with volunteer tattoo artists
• P.ink organized free post-mastectomy tattoos for more than 500 cancer survivors

More than 140,000 breast cancer patients undergo mastectomies each year, and each one is left with scars that can be painful reminders of their medical trauma.

For a breast cancer survivor, tattooing over surgical scars “can have a huge psychological benefit,” says Dr. Megan Vucovich, assistant professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who specializes in breast cancer reconstructions. “They didn’t have a say in the mastectomy, but they can take control and shape their scars into something meaningful.”

While tattooing should not be done until after all surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation have been completed — “we recommend waiting six months to a year after surgery, depending on the healing process, to allow the scar to mature and flatten out,” says Vucovich — breast cancer survivors actually have one advantage. : “There’s usually numbness after a mastectomy, so most people tolerate post-mastectomy tattoos better, pain-wise, than a traditional tattoo,” she says.

For more than 10 years, a non-profit organization called Personal Ink, known as P.ink, has helped connect breast cancer survivors who want to turn their scars into art with volunteer tattoo artists. Every October, the group recruits tattoo artists willing to donate their time and organizes P.ink Day events in cities across the country. Since it started, P.ink has helped organize free mastectomy tattoos for 527 cancer survivors on 140 P.ink days. The group will begin accepting applications for its October events in July.

Stars who faced breast cancer and shared their stories

Three people who survived breast cancer last year and who, with the help of P.ink, tattooed their scars after mastectomy on P.ink Day, shared their stories with PEOPLE in this week’s issue.

Kerry Wright: ‘It’s so empowering’

Kerry Wright has never been a “tattoo person”. But that was before seven breast cancer surgeries changed her body – and her mind. “I’m covered in scars,” says Wright, 54. “And I didn’t realize how much I avoided looking at them.” Until she got a tattoo. Now I’m “no longer uncomfortable in my own skin.”

Diagnosed in January 2020, Wright was initially told she needed a lumpectomy and would likely be able to return to her job as a medical assistant and office coordinator after four weeks of radiation. But the cancer spread and 17 months of grueling treatment and surgery followed. She passed out after her first chemotherapy treatment: “I just couldn’t take it.” Because of the radiation, she had burn wounds that needed to be nursed 24 hours a day for six weeks. “I reacted to everything,” says Wright, who still has to take 42 pills a day. “I had every possible side effect.”

Moira Wright with her mom Kerry Wright.

Brynda Schult

Her daughter Moira, 30, quit her job and moved into Wright’s Westmont, Ill., home to help out. “For a year and a half, I couldn’t reach into the cupboard and get my own cup or plate,” says Wright. “She pulled me out. I wouldn’t have survived without her.” Early on, Moira started showing her mom the work of artists who specialized in tattooing over mastectomy scars. “I was like, ‘I’m 50 years old. I’ve never had a tattoo. That’s not me. I don’t do that.’ ”

After her last reconstruction surgery in November 2021, when she decided against nipple reconstruction (“Healing in two places, and I had nothing but healing problems? I wasn’t going to do that”), Wright began to have second thoughts. But she quickly realized that a tattoo covering such a large area would be more than she could easily afford—more than $1,500 to $1,800. “Cancer is expensive. Postrak is expensive because of all the drugs,” says Wright. “I couldn’t justify taking that out of my household budget.”

Tattoo artist Chris Yaws works on Kerry Wright.

Brynda Schult

Then she came across P.ink’s post on social media and signed up for one of the P.ink group days. “They get so many applications, and it was my first year applying, so I thought, ‘That’s not going to happen,’” she says. But in August, she received a call that she had been accepted.

She flew to Denver, where artist Christopher Yaws spent eight hours tattooing her design, an intricate array of dogwood flowers (which have special meaning to Wright and her daughter) and hydrangeas (in honor of Wright’s friend who died in 2018). “Kerry’s been through so much,” says Yaws, who has volunteered at P.ink Days twice before. “It amazes me how tough these women are.”

The topmost flower, on the right side of her chest, is where her chemotherapy line was. “He covered my scar on the left, which was such a thoughtful thing to do,” Wright says.

Kerry Wright.

Brynda Schult

Seeing the result for the first time, “I couldn’t speak. I could no longer see my scars,” she says. “It was beautiful. It was so much more than I imagined it could be.” When she got home, “my partner, who’s also not a tattoo person, was staring at it, and he said, ‘Oh my God, that’s art.’ And that is art.”

But more than that, “it meant trust,” she says. “With cancer, everyone tells you, ‘We do this, you have to do that.’ This tattoo is the first choice I have to make. You take back some of your power and say, ‘This is for me.’ And that’s huge when you’ve gone through trauma. This was truly the beginning of healing for me.”

Olivia Munn recalls ‘shock’ when she saw her body after double mastectomy: ‘Looking in the mirror…no emotion’ (Exclusive)

Janet Wiseman: ‘I have the last word on cancer’

It was a surprisingly easy decision for Janet Wiseman to skip reconstructive surgery after undergoing a double mastectomy in 2015. “I’m very athletically built and my pair always got in the way when I was working under the car or when I was running,” says Wiseman, 56, a former fire captain from Annapolis, Md. “They were just for looks. They were not something I was attached to!”

But whenever Wiseman looked in the mirror after surgery, “all I would see was a scar. I’m the Scarecrow in the middle,” she says. “I kept telling myself: ‘These are battle scars. It’s not who you are.’ But I didn’t realize the effect that scar had on my emotions.” And even though she and her husband felt comfortable enough that she could enjoy the freedom of bathing topless, people often assumed she was transgender. The solution, she concluded, is a tattoo.

Wiseman was chosen for one of P.ink’s New York events last October held at the Hustle Butter Tattoo Gallery, and she and her tattoo artist Akos Strenner created a design depicting the hand of God touching the spot where she was diagnosed with cancer.

Tattoo artist Akos Strenner works on Janet Wiseman.

Lydia DeJesus

Her first look at the results of Strenner’s work “was devastating,” says Wiseman. Overcome with emotion, she cried and hugged Strenner: “It seemed to me that I was no longer damaged.”

For Strenner, who was a first-time P.ink Day volunteer, “it was a nice experience,” he says. “It changed me. To be able to do that for her meant so much to me. I’ve been getting tattoos every day for the last 25 years, but I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”

For Wiseman, the experience was deeply meaningful: “After battling cancer, you’re left with pieces. It makes me feel like I’m not badly put together. God brought this to an end. I can’t see the scar anymore. I see courage. I see power. I won.”

Morgan Wade shares update on recovery from double mastectomy: ‘No regrets’

Dawn Pugh: “I’m back”

Since being diagnosed with four different types of breast cancer in 2014, Dawn Pugh has had to deal with breast loss twice. First, when she had a mastectomy, and then in 2019, when her implants were removed due to health side effects, including inflammation and high blood pressure, that were so severe that she became disabled from her job as a dental assistant.

“People don’t think of breast cancer as an amputation, because it’s not a leg or an arm, but it’s what you do,” says Pugh, 49.

Last October, after P.ink connected her with volunteer tattoo artist Eddie Torres, Pugh traveled from her Portland, Mich., home to a P.ink event in Miami. “The experience was life-changing,” says Pugh. “P.ink made it so special – they gave us sweets and blankets and Eddie put so much love into it.”

Dawn Pugh.

Jenasen Moffatt

Getting the tattoo “was a joy,” she says. – He put his heart into it and it shows.

Says Torres, the first P.ink Day participant, “it was emotional. I told Dawn that it changed my life just as much.”

The result – a pair of mandalas that incorporate numerology into the design – took about eight hours to complete and cover the reconstructed nipple and areola tattoos that were left mismatched after Pugh’s implants were removed.

When she saw her new art, “I thought, ‘I’ll never wear a shirt again!’ There’s an unexpected confidence,” says Pugh. “I feel like a jerk again. Now when I look at my chest, I don’t think, ‘Oh, flat.’ I’m like, ‘Fire, man!'”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education