Nothing is really ever the same after a cancer diagnosis.
No matter the prognosis, the diagnosis — and the disease itself — leaves its marks on the mind and body.
But a downtown Bloomington tattoo artist's services help some cancer survivors alter the scars the disease has left on their bodies.
Chad Ramsay, the founder of Illinois Tattoo Company, offers nipple reconstruction tattooing to women who've undergone mastectomies following a breast cancer diagnosis.
It all started about seven or eight years ago, Ramsay said on WGLT's Sound Ideas, but it didn't initially start with nipple reconstruction.
"We were just getting ready to close for the day and a lady walked in and she was crying. She was visibly upset; she had just found out she had cancer and she felt the need to get a tattoo," he said.
Ramsay said he tattooed a small cross on the woman. When it was finished, he decided not to charge her. She came back years later, he said, to thank him for his work and to describe how it helped her through her journey with cancer.
"It just sort of made me think, 'Man. These people go through hell and then they're stuck with something that they're not necessarily happy with,'" he said.
From there, he decided he would offer the service of hyper-realistic tattooing for breast cancer survivors, hoping to help them regain a sense of self in their bodies.
"Some people feel like they're missing part of their womanhood, or they're disfigured in some way. And I just thought, 'Man, I know I can do it. So I just started offering it," he said.
For some women, a breast cancer diagnosis will lead to a partial or full removal of one or both breasts — and in this process, the nipple may end up removed as well.
Cancer centers and other medical providers do typically offer a range of options for patients after mastectomies, including medical micropigmentation, or otherwise called nipple reconstruction. But how costly that is depends on variables like insurance; Ramsay said his hope is to prevent finances from being a barrier to reconstruction if that's what someone wants.
"It doesn't make them feel like they're going to have to spend a whole bunch of money on something to alter their body," he said, adding that the studio setting — more laid back than a medical office and livelier with music and laughter — may be what some clients prefer as well.
About a dozen women have undergone nipple reconstruction in the years since Ramsay first started offering it; two clinics — one in Chicago and one in Champaign — sometimes refer clients to him.
He treats each of these tattoos, he said, "oddly enough... like a portrait." In one case, he worked not to reconstruct a new nipple, but to correct its appearance post-surgery.
Nipple reconstruction itself is not uncommon, as evidenced by its availability at cancer clinics, but Ramsay said he's one of few, if not the only, tattooists in the area offering the service for free.
"If it's something that anybody is interested in, I'm happy to sit down and talk to them about options," he said. "If I can help you out, I'd be happy to."
Every so often on WGLT, we feature community servants and unsung heroes working to make Bloomington-Normal a better place to live. If you have a suggestion for a More of That Please feature, you can email us at news@wglt.org.
