She Wears Courage on Her Chest
She Wears Courage on Her Chest
Palm Desert, CA (PRWEB) June 13, 2006
The 61-year-old Sun City woman spent more than $ 30,000 on reconstructive surgery as part of a 13-year-long recovery from breast cancer. All she got was a chestful of scar tissue she could hardly stand to look at in the mirror.
Now, she has a swirling tattoo of red roses and a hummingbird on her chest, and she can’t stop looking – and smiling – at herself in any mirror that happens to be handy.
“I’m stoked,” Hainline said in a recent interview, during which she briefly unbuttoned her blouse to show off the flowers and flitting hummingbird on her otherwise flat chest. “I’m so happy to do this; to have the courage.”
The tattoo is the work of Cameron Fuhrer, owner of Strata’s Prizma Tattoo in Cathedral City. Creating the tattoo for Hainline was a transformative experience for both of them.
“We both wept on several occasions. It was so powerful,” said Fuhrer, whose work is well known among tattoo aficionados. “To have an effect on someone’s life is a blessing. It’s truly amazing. It keeps me going as well.”
The tattoo was done over a two-week period, beginning with a consultation in which Fuhrer mapped the scar tissue on Hainline’s chest and worked on a design to cover it.
Two sessions, one for the right side and one for the left, were completed last week. The total cost was $ 700, Hainline said.
“You can’t be shy in this,” she said of the sessions. “I was (sitting) in the window” at the shop.
And the response from friends and family has been overwhelmingly positive, she said.
“Whatever she does is fine with me,” said husband John Hainline. “It worked out to where she really enjoys it.”
Marie Papia of Sun City, who takes an aerobic class with Hainline, noticed an immediate difference, beyond the tattoo.
“She seems more confident, and she’s beaming,” Papia said. “It’s given her back a lot of her dignity.”
In Hainline’s case, she said she did her research and talked with other women, but feels she did not get detailed information from her doctors.
“The plastic surgeons (all said), they were going to make me a beautiful breast, and that’s just not true,” she said.
Her journey
A former teacher from New Jersey who now organizes gin rummy tournaments in Las Vegas, Hainline was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, after finding a pea-sized lump in her breast during a self-exam. She was told she needed an immediate mastectomy and chemotherapy.
As part of the surgery, she opted for breast reconstruction using a technique in which fat and muscle tissue from a woman’s abdomen are used to rebuild the removed breast.
While considered one of the best options for mastectomy patients, for Hainline, “it was horrendous.”
“There were scars,” she recalled. “I had four operations to correct that.”
A year later, cancer was discovered in Hainline’s other breast, requiring another mastectomy. This time, however, she decided to try saline implants, with disastrous results again.
The implants were “like a water bed,” she recalled. “They ruptured and leaked.”
A second set of implants also ruptured, and a year and a half ago, Hainline decided to go flat – with one final operation to remove as much scar tissue as possible.
Her inspiration for the tattoo was a memory, from years before, of a woman she had seen running on a beach, with a tattoo covering the scars of her mastectomy. The Hainlines then visited several area tattoo parlors before connecting with Fuhrer.
“In the end, the cheapest solution turned out to be the best,” Fuhrer said. “People need to be healed in different ways, and I think in this case that’s what happened. There was a soul healing.”
Hainline is still smiling.
“I feel right now I have my beauty restored to me,” she said, “and I think that will last for a long time. It will last forever.”
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