tattoo | Patient Commando

Personal Ink (P.INK)

P.INK provides tattoo inspirations, ideas, and artist info to breast cancer survivors. To share or pin your own stories, design ideas, and favorite artists, email help@p-ink.org.

It’s difficult to overstate how difficult breast cancer can be for the sufferer, and surviving it can be especially challenging if surgery has left patients with scars, amputations or other changes to their body. Now, the P.INK campaign aims to use decorative tattooing to help women cover up marks, forge community bonds and increase self-esteem.

The platform operates as a Pinterest group, where users can post their own stories about dealing with breast cancer, show off tattoos they already have and share design ideas for others. The pinboard, which was set up by advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bugowsky and social cause marketing firm David Clarke Cause, already details the journey of Molly, who was left with scarred nipples after a mastectomy and had trouble finding resources relevant to her ideas for tattooing the area. P.INK aims to provide a resource for those like Molly, connecting them with tattoo artists with experience of breast inking and creative types with ideas for designs, as well as with others in a similar situation. Users can then [...] continue the story

By Anne Marie Cerato

There are a few words I thought I’d never utter together, Tattoos and Therapy are an example, mind you “I have cancer” is another! You might wonder how inflicting pain on one’s self could be seen as therapeutic, but I swear to you it is. The pain is temporary, what stays behind is a permanent reminder, much like a scar. Before actually getting tattooed, I did try conventional therapy, it worked for a while, but was somewhat unsatisfying, but I’m jumping the gun!! We really should start at the beginning.

My name is Anne Marie and I am living with stage 4 Lung Cancer, my story starts in 2009 when I was diagnosed with stage 3a Adenocarcinoma of the right lung. This was a shocker because at the time I was a healthy 30 year old that had never smoked!! I received treatment almost immediately (Chemo-radiation, surgery followed by high dose chemo); six months later I was done. All this seemed to have worked until 2011 when it was determined that like the cat, the cancer came back. This time, it was in both lungs and in multiple lobes and my options were far fewer, so how did [...] continue the story

Molly’s P.INK Tattoo

Tattoo Therapy