美国国家公共电台 NPR After Mastectomy, Young Woman's Tattoo Helps Her Feel Whole Again

 

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Our bodies change over our lifetimes. Those changes can be dramatic and unsettling after an illness. NPR's Rebecca Davis introduces us to a woman whose cancer diagnosis¹ forced her to think differently about her body and how she could feel whole again.

REBECCA DAVIS, BYLINE²: It's just a few minutes before 1 o'clock when the door to Lisa Doll's studio swings open.

LISA DOLL: Hey. What's up?

NICOLE HITE: Hi (laughter).

DAVIS: And in walks her next appointment. It's a young woman and her boyfriend.

HITE: Hello, how are you?

DOLL: How are you guys doing?

HITE: Good, nervous (laughter).

DAVIS: Nicole Hite (ph) is 25. And she's nervous because she's about to do something she's never done before - get a tattoo³. And it's going to be a big tattoo that will cover much of her chest. Artist Lisa Doll goes over the final drawing.

DOLL: This is - be kind of the basic of the design. And what I'll do is I'll put it on and then...

DAVIS: Lisa takes the couple to a private room. It's an inviting⁴ space, tastefully decorated. Nicole takes off her shirt and lies down on a reclining chair.

DOLL: All right, so we're just going to start in, like, a small, little line. Do you feel that?

HITE: Don't really feel anything but your pressure from your hand.

DOLL: Good.

DAVIS: You wouldn't know it at first glance, but Nicole Hite has had a double mastectomy. And if you look closer, you'll see the scars and the fact that her breasts are smooth. There's no nipples.

DOLL: Do you feel that you have - that you're more sensitive or less sensitive due to the surgery?

HITE: Less sensitive. I've lost a lot of my nerve sensation.

DOLL: OK.

DAVIS: Getting this tattoo, Nicole says, is the final chapter in a story that started three years ago. That's when Nicole noticed some worrying changes in her breast. Her doctor ordered a biopsy. And then late one afternoon, she got a phone call from the radiologist telling her she had cancer in one breast - a very early stage but cancer nonetheless.

HITE: And he said, I know this sucks, but it is what it is. And obviously I was shocked. And I started crying because how the hell do you call me on the phone and tell me I have cancer? Like, in the TV shows, they call you in for an appointment, and they break the news in person. And it all happened on the phone within five minutes.

DAVIS: The news was all the more shocking because Nicole was only 22 at the time. She had no family history of cancer. Yet the cancer had spread throughout the breast.

HITE: And so to them, because it was so expansive in my mammary glands⁵, they needed to do a mastectomy.

DAVIS: Nicole started thinking long and hard about the idea of having a breast removed and then reconstructed. And the thing she kept worrying about was the idea that her breasts would be so different from each other. They would be asymmetrical⁶.

HITE: It's weird⁷. It's kind of - I don't know how to explain it. Society has set women up to live by certain beauty standards. And so in my head, being a uni-boob (ph) - having one boob scared me (laughter).

DAVIS: Nicole's solution - to have both breasts removed and both breasts reconstructed. She says that way her body would look and feel more natural to her, except for her nipples. Those could not be salvaged⁸.

HITE: I remember when I first saw my chest without the bandages after my mastectomy, I cried. And I didn't cry because I didn't have boobs. I cried because I didn't have nipples. It was heartbreaking because I at least wanted those. There's so much that goes into that - sexuality, just looking normal.

DAVIS: Now, Nicole could have chosen nipple reconstruction⁹, but she'd heard the new nipples don't look very realistic. And then she noticed that some women were replacing their nipples with what's called a restorative tattoo. Artist Lisa Doll says this kind of tattoo makes use of a classic painting technique called trompe l'oeil, which is French for optical illusion.

DOLL: Meaning using light and shadow to create a 3-D image where there is no 3-D image - so a flat surface.

DAVIS: So that flat surface at least looks like a three-dimensional nipple. Now, Doll says some cancer survivors¹⁰ take the tattooing¹¹ even further and go for an elaborate design that covers scars and fills in the chest with something new and meaningful.

DOLL: It's physically¹² scrapbooking that moment in time. So cancer took something away from them, put a mark on their body. But they're leaving that lasting¹³ mark.

DAVIS: And that's what Nicole Hite decided¹⁴ she wanted not the illusion of a nipple but a statement and big enough to mask the thing that was bothering her the most - her scars.

HITE: Because I would look down and be sad about my scars.

DAVIS: Nicole imagined a dramatic, symbolic¹⁵ work. She pictured objects coming apart into the pieces of a puzzle and then coming back together again.

HITE: You always hear about people breaking down and shattering into pieces and then picking themselves back up. I feel like I had done that.

DAVIS: And she wanted a pocket watch tattooed¹⁶ over one breast because...

HITE: Time was a huge part of my recovery not just physically but emotionally and mentally.

DAVIS: Nicole took her design ideas to Lisa Doll. She sketched¹⁷ it out, and Nicole was thrilled. But as the months passed, Nicole noticed she was changing, that she wasn't as sad as before, that time, just like that pocket watch indicated, was working its magic. And the tattoo she was so convinced she wanted - well, that is not the tattoo she's getting inked on her chest today.

HITE: (Laughter).

DOLL: You're almost done. We are finishing up her left breast.

HITE: It feels like a bee sting.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVIS: Lisa Doll has been working on Nicole for about three hours. And then, finally, she's finished.

DOLL: OK. Go ahead and check it out.

HITE: Woohoo (ph).

DAVIS: Nicole gets up and goes to a mirror. She's slim. Her long, dark hair is held back by a headband. She stands up very straight and studies the fresh tattoo.

HITE: I love it. I absolutely love it.

DAVIS: Nicole thought she wanted a tattoo to cover her scars, to cover the sadness she felt when she saw them. But the image she sees in the mirror reveals something else - that Nicole Hite has made peace with this body. So instead of a big, expansive tattoo, her smooth breasts are adorned¹⁸ with a weeding branch of cherry blossoms and pinks and reds.

HITE: It's elegant and delicate, and it doesn't cover too much of my scar tissue. I don't think my scar is anything to be ashamed of - perfect.

DAVIS: Rebecca Davis, NPR News.

HITE: Yay. Thank you so much.

DOLL: No problem.

HITE: I'm very happy with this.

DOLL: I like it a lot.

(SOUNDBITE OF LORD HURON SONG, "FOOL FOR LOVE")

1 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 tattoo   

n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于

参考例句：

• I've decided to get my tattoo removed.我已经决定去掉我身上的纹身。
• He had a tattoo on the back of his hand.他手背上刺有花纹。

4 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。

5 glands   

n.腺( gland的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a snake's poison glands 蛇的毒腺
• the sebaceous glands in the skin 皮脂腺

6 asymmetrical   

adj.不均匀的，不对称的

参考例句：

• Most people's faces are asymmetrical.多数人的脸并不对称。
• Folds may be gentle and symmetrical,or sharp and asymmetrical.褶皱可以是平缓而对称的，也可以是陡峭而非对称的。

7 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

8 salvaged   

（从火灾、海难等中）抢救（某物）( salvage的过去式和过去分词 )； 回收利用（某物）

参考例句：

• The investigators studied flight recorders salvaged from the wreckage. 调查者研究了从飞机残骸中找到的黑匣子。
• The team's first task was to decide what equipment could be salvaged. 该队的首要任务是决定可以抢救哪些设备。

9 reconstruction   

n.重建，再现，复原

参考例句：

• The country faces a huge task of national reconstruction following the war.战后，该国面临着重建家园的艰巨任务。
• In the period of reconstruction,technique decides everything.在重建时期，技术决定一切。

10 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

11 tattooing   

n.刺字，文身v.刺青，文身( tattoo的现在分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击

参考例句：

• tattooing and body piercing 文身和穿体装饰
• On earth most work of the absolute shy cattle ^s skin-tattooing world! 地球上最牛的纹身绝对惊世之作！ 来自互联网

12 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

13 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

14 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

15 symbolic   

adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的

参考例句：

• It is symbolic of the fighting spirit of modern womanhood.它象征着现代妇女的战斗精神。
• The Christian ceremony of baptism is a symbolic act.基督教的洗礼仪式是一种象征性的做法。

16 tattooed   

v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击

参考例句：

• He had tattooed his wife's name on his upper arm. 他把妻子的名字刺在上臂上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sailor had a heart tattooed on his arm. 那水兵在手臂上刺上一颗心。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

17 sketched   

v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The historical article sketched the major events of the decade. 这篇有关历史的文章概述了这十年中的重大事件。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He sketched the situation in a few vivid words. 他用几句生动的语言简述了局势。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

18 adorned   

[计]被修饰的

参考例句：

• The walls were adorned with paintings. 墙上装饰了绘画。
• And his coat was adorned with a flamboyant bunch of flowers. 他的外套上面装饰着一束艳丽刺目的鲜花。