Tattoo

Tattoos are fascinating. They are a form of self-expression that helps to tell your story and show the world who you are, while also representing the artist’s unique talent.

Hubby and I had a deal that we would get tattoos once I passed my postgrad diploma, which I did – but then the pandemic struck and we decided to delay it until things settled. And then when we found out about the cancer, we pushed it back even more. Just pushed back, not put off…

Much like our personalities, our ideas of how we want our bodies to be permanently marked are complete opposites. He wants full sleeves that would incorporate various elements of his favourite things of music, gaming and his faith into intricate designs. My ideas are much simpler and smaller – just a couple of line drawings on my wrists and upper arms, perhaps. Each drawing will represent something significant in my life.

A year ago I didn’t even know that one would sometimes need to be inked for medical purposes. And if someone had told me that my first tattoo would be one of those, I probably would have laughed it off. 

In the more conventional sense of a tattoo with ink, I now have three little dots, which could easily be mistaken for freckles or moles. These were used to align the machine correctly before starting each session of radiotherapy.  

They might fade over time or hang around there forever, I’m truly not sure. What I do know is that they are little reminders now.  Each time I see these little tattoos, I’m grateful for what they mean. They represented the start of my recovery journey. But now that that part is done, they remind me of how far I’ve come in the last couple of months.

In line with the definition of a “tattoo” being a mark, permanent or temporary, that is fixed to the skin, I also have some other “tattoos” – surgery and recovery scars.

It’s harder to see the beauty in these tattoos. These kinds of scars are a lot more noticeable and harder to hide from myself than the little dots. They glare at me every day when I get dressed.

Looking at the upside down T-scar, and random needle and tube marks on my stomach and neck, the process from which they were born still fills me with anxiety. They are memories of the long, lonely nights in a hospital bed that my heart suffered through, and the many doses of morphine and other medicines that my body suffered through. There is also the unintentional comparison of what it looked like before, when the skin was still smooth and undamaged.

Despite the scars getting lighter with time (and tissue oil), they will never truly go away, and neither will my body restore itself to its pre-cancer state. My skin has irreversibly changed, just as much as my heart.

Going forward, I will forever be a scarred lady. I refuse to look at the scars as tokens of misery that want to remind me of all that cancer stole. I strive to wear them as medals of battles won. May that never change. And may my next tattoos be by my design and my choice.