Judy McCrea lay back in the black chair as the tattoo needle started to hum.
"I'm not nervous at all," she said. "I think I'm more excited to look somewhat normal again."
Fifteen years after she found a lump in her breast while lying in bed watching TV, McCrea, was getting an areola tattoo. McCrea said she found the lump in March 2011. A doctor first thought it was calcification and ordered a biopsy. Early results came back benign, but another doctor insisted it was cancer, and it wasn’t until a fourth biopsy that showed it was malignant.
"I was devastated, because I never thought it would happen to me," she said. "You hear people say, 'I have cancer,' but when it happens to you, it's totally different."
Years later, the memories still intrude.
"There are a lot of times where I can't listen to people that have breast cancer," she said. "I don't want to watch it. I don't want to hear about it because everything comes back to me. Losing my hair, losing my eyelashes, losing everything."
Reconstruction began with tissue expanders, which were filled gradually with saline. McCrea still remembered the first look in the mirror afterwards.
"I looked like a little girl, because I didn't have anything there," McCrea said. "I'm missing a part of myself that I'll never get back."
Before starting, Christie Laney, registered nurse and owner of ‘The Inked Daisy,’ matched ink to McCrea's skin tone from different ink shades. She pressed a stencil onto McCrea's chest to set the shape and size. Laney said her own background shaped how she runs the studio.
"I do let people know that I am a labor and delivery nurse, so I am dealing with some pretty intimate parts in my nursing world," she said. "It's a judgment-free zone. I'm here to support whatever they feel comfortable with."
She has not had breast cancer herself.
" I cannot imagine having cancer. First of all, but then, secondly, our breast ... I feel like people define women by their breasts," Laney said. "So, not having areolas or nipples, I just feel like it would take a big chunk of my feminine away. Being able to have that little piece back would make me, as a woman, feel whole again, and that's just what I want for other women as well."
Areola clients can be hard to find, she said, and McCrea made her first one easier.
"It's just hard, I think, to get clients due to the feeling of vulnerability," Laney said. "So Judy was great. She just wanted to feel whole again."
October is breast cancer awareness month, and Laney is offering the service at no charge to breast cancer survivors.
"I just want them to be able to have something, a little piece that they lost," Laney said.
McCrea also had a message for men and women facing the disease.
"Try to be as strong as you can, get a good support system," she said. "I didn't have one, but I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that do. Whatever you have to do to make yourself feel normal again."
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.
