Many breast cancer survivors and patients struggle with body image after surgery. This is a completely natural feeling, yet some women feel shame or uncertainty about pursuing a reconstruction option that works for them.
Anjanette Fenner felt that uncertainty after her mastectomy. “When you go through something like cancer… you almost feel like you shouldn’t,” Fenner says. “You’re not allowed to want your body to look a certain way. You’ve been through this terrible thing, you’ve faced your mortality. How dare you care about what your breasts look like, right?”
On top of that, some survivors are overwhelmed by the options, which include forgoing reconstruction altogether (going “flat”), using a flap procedure to pull skin from other areas of the body, getting inked with or without any other reconstruction, and more.
In this video, three survivors explain why they decided to get inked, and we get to witness the progression of their new tattoos from the first stenciled outline to the finished product. [Read more…]