Making a mark

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This article was published 11/01/2018 (2845 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bobbie Hornan stripped off her red sweater and reclined on the tattoo studio bench, closing her eyes as the artist pressed the whirring machine into her chest, methodically re-pigmenting the skin around where her nipples used to be so it would look, again, like areolas.

It was Wednesday morning, more than three years since Hornan was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent radiation, chemotherapy and a double mastectomy and after, in 2014, a paramedical tattoo artist coloured nipples over the scar tissue left behind.

“I honestly didn’t know what to expect,” Hornan said. “I just knew I wanted them to look like I still had nipples.”

She was at Cosmedic Ink this week to touch up her original tattoos, which were gradually covered by scabbed-over skin.

It’s not cheap. Keri Hamilton, who owns the Winnipeg shop and is touching up Hornan’s tattoos, charges $400 for one breast and $500 for both. In some places across the country, the cost can go as high as $1,000.

For years, breast cancer survivors in Winnipeg were able to get the tattoos at no cost, thanks to a charity whose funds were held by the Health Sciences Centre Foundation. The foundation doled out the money to cover the cost of hiring artists such as Hamilton, in keeping with the charity’s directive.

Last summer, that money ran out and it’s unclear why.

But from the moment they learned it did, Hamilton, fellow artist Melanie Wiebe, and others working in related health-care support roles have been working on launching their own viable and affordable alternative.

They’ve formally banded together to create the non-profit Angels Ink Foundation Manitoba. It’s early days still, but the group has big ambitions. In addition to doing areola tattoos for breast cancer survivors, they want to fundraise enough to offer a host of paramedical tattooing services.

They plan to do tattoos that will help with skin pigment issues, hair loss as a result of medical treatments or from alopecia, as well as ones that will lessen the visible impact of scars from burns or surgeries. The point, Wiebe said, is to be able to help people who want to get back to how they used to look without imposing a financial burden.

“It’s really important to be able to give back to somebody,” she said, “especially if this isn’t their choice.”

It takes Hamilton more than an hour to touch up Hornan’s areola tattoos. Wiebe, who only recently added areola tattooing to her repertoire, took photos and videos of the procedure, asking questions about Hamilton’s process as she worked.

Once the paperwork is out of the way, Hamilton asks about colour and size. While she usually judges which combinations of tattoo ink to use depending on the person’s skin colouring, she leaves size up to the individual.

“Some people, you know, God gave them huge areolas and they might want smaller ones,” she said. “Now they get a choice, which is nice.”

Ultimately, what matters to Hornan is she doesn’t have to always look at her body and see scar tissue.

“It was a constant reminder that I had breast cancer,” she said. “With the tattooed areola it was OK, it wasn’t so much an in-my-face reminder of what I went through.”

Angels Ink Foundation plans to make an appearance at the Winnipeg Tattoo Show next month, Wiebe said. Although it is still working through the logistics of building a charity “from the ground up,” she said the focus is on getting out there sooner rather than later to meet the need.

When it comes to areola tattoos, in particular, Wiebe said dozens of women who planned on the procedure were left in the lurch when funds ran out last summer.

While she acknowledged it isn’t part of all women’s healing process, Wiebe said, “It’s very important that we get this up and going because a lot of women want this.”

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca