I’m fairly certain that when you read the title of this blog, you will think I have officially run out of things to write about. Usually, the only time I mention tattoos is when I threaten my offspring with “I don’t mind if you get inked, but if you do, it will simply mean you will no longer require any financial support from us as parents.” Otherwise, I don’t pay much attention to what is sometimes known as “tramp stamps” and “job-stoppers”, but lately they have been the topic of conversations quite frequently.
One of my besties’ dad is having a surgery to remove a mass today. The area of concern was marked by a tiny tattoo some time ago when an abnormality showed up during a routine procedure. I didn’t realise that during colonoscopies, doctors use special tattoo ink to mark abnormal growths or lesions. Using this sneaky technique helps to ensure that these marked areas can be found chop chop (pun intended) for future monitoring or surgical removal. Doctors also use tattoos during radiation to ensure accurate alignment so that they radiate in the exact spot each time. During reconstructive surgery, they often tattoo the nipple areola, camouflage scars and restore eyebrows. I also had no idea that many people tattoo medical alerts or IDs onto themselves to indicate certain directives and medical conditions (although this totally makes sense!). Apparently, you can tattoo to hide vitiligo, birthmarks, stretchmarks and other scars. One can even tattoo your corneas (I am sure crime bosses do this all the time when they go into hiding!). I found out that doctors even tattoo belly buttons, and during gender affirmation surgeries, they tattoo pigmentation of reconstructed genitalia.
Recently, we had an Irish granny with us. I met her while she was snuggly tucked into bed. She told me stories about her life growing up in Belfast, her love of Guinness and how she doesn’t miss the miserable weather and rainy days of her home country. Later in the day, I went back to check on her. She was sitting in her recliner, the aircon blowing warmly on her, and all she wore was a nighty. I walked into the room and literally jumped when I realised that her pale freckly skin was covered, and I mean COVDERED with tattoos. Even her fingers were full of ink art and she had a huge stamp on her neck. She was not your typical granny at all. When I asked her about her body art, she smiled mischievously at me and told me that every piece of ink has a special meaning, but she doesn’t tell anyone. We were all fascinated and thought she must have either been in a grimy back street gang, or maybe a member of the Irish Resistance Army, or my favourite theory was that she must have served a jail sentence for murdering her in-laws with an axe. After she was with us for a few weeks, her medical aid decided that she needed to move to another facility that was on their list of suppliers. She moved to an institution, and after exactly six hours there, we received a call that she wanted to come back. Apparently she went a bit loopy because staff ignored patients, there was too much noise and she had to share a room with three other people. I wonder what the people thought when this pale granny, with her neck tattoo tried to escape from the sub-acute!
We had another tattooed patient who spent her last four months with us. Glin had a brain tumour and was in her fifties. Aggressive chemo did not work, and she was frail and bald. She had permanent makeup tattooed on her face years before she got sick, and when I looked at her photos, I noticed how she always looked beautiful and groomed. But in her hospital bed, tiny and frail, the make-up looked strangely grotesque, like a clown’s makeup. Dark, stark eyebrows on her deathly white face, red lip liner and eye liner made her look disfigured. A German patient had a sleeve tattooed whilst living in Thailand. His entire leg from his hip to his ankle was an intricately beautiful piece of art that must have taken many painful hours to create. After a terrible accident on an oil rigg, the doctors focused on saving his leg, and keeping his tat intact was not the main priority. As he was healing, we were all (him included) fascinated at how the tattoo changed shape as skin was lost and stretched.
A patient that still haunts me was a young man named Nick, who had motor neuron disease. He had so many tattoos that it looked like his entire body was a canvas. I would chat to him and ask questions about the different pieces of art, and he would patiently communicate on his device as to what different ones meant to him. His past was etched onto him, and it allowed us to hear the stories of who he was long ago, before the most brutal of diseases started killing him slowly and cruelly.
I’m rethinking tattoos. Maybe it’s about more than rebellion and decoration after all. My cousin’s tattoo of her father’s signature is a quiet declaration of her love for him. Nick’s tattoos are echoes of a life lived and a voice for what has now been silenced. The German man’s now mangled tattoo is a story of survival. The tattooed nipple after a breast reconstruction is a victory over what was endured. A medical marker carried inside my friend’s dad’s abdomen is what will save his life. Tattoos might just be skin-deep, but it seems they are not shallow at all.