Refusing Tattoos?

Or just laziness.  I mean, they have the information right there on their computer system and obviously looking it up and remarking doesn't take much.

Also, if you're really careful, the marks will stay on until the next day.  So the only time they really had to do any research was after a weekend - sometimes the marks would wash completely off in spite of my best efforts.

I wish I had found this website before I started.  I was told so matter of factly that I would have 2 tiny tattoos that I never even thought that I could refuse them.

I planned to refuse tattoos; I even took multi-colored Sharpies with me to the mapping appt.  Luckily, the place I went used markers and tape anyway, so that was one battle I didn't have to fight.

Yes, in the grand scheme of things, a few little tattoos may not be a great big deal.  But I felt that with so little that I could control on this journey, I was going to take control at any chance I had!

Janye thanks for the advice. I am good with makeup and if worst comes to worst I can cover pretty well.

However tape sticks to me really really well. Like I had adhesive on me a month after my surgery. I only wash my hair once or twice a week at the hair salon so I can shower lickety split!

I however am going to Florida after my staging and check, so maybe I would just be better with the tats.

My quick opinion - the tats I got are very small and I can only find one of them. As for convenience, it made it more convenient for me so I could get in and out faster than if they had to remeasure me every day. Rads can get really tiring when you get them every day.

Butting in to share an idea regarding florescent tattoos one of the gals from my rads group had. Here's the link.  http://www.people.vcu.edu/~kmmossi/downloads/Localization_Tattoos.pdf

Rachel said....

 Renee- I am sorry about the fluorescent tattoo thing.  I had a big big issue with the tattoos, the same as everyone, plus being raised by concentration camp survivors who still had the numbers and green triangle on their arms - actually the whole kibbutz has the largest number of concentration camp survivors in one place, so I saw those tattoos everywhere.  My son is named for one of them.  So additionally to being like you, clear skin and vanity, and also not wanting to like the Simon and Garfunkel song "carry the reminder of every blow that knocked me down until I cried out in my anger and my pain, I am leaving I am leaving but the fighter still remains" (the Boxer) carry cancer with me for the rest of my life, or have to have them removed by lasers...I also felt it was way too concentration camp for me- have this tattoo or you die,  and that book I read  that i love so much (Five Lessons I DIDNT learn from Cancer) she mentions how she negotiated the dots down to 2, and then she was ticked off when she learned that another friend had NO tattoos.  Also tattoos are against the Jewish religion, you can't be buried in a Jewish cemetary if you have tatoos etc...I found a web page with a woman asking a rabbi about it and she said that they actually offered to her that she could just have the markers and the stickers over the markers that keeps them in place, and he said OK that's what you have to do.

So I went hunting for a rad onc who wouldnt tattoo me. I spoke to the first one, at cornell, who actually turned out to be the rad onc from the book and she assured me NO PROBLEM using markers instead of tattoos.  But the gown syndrome again, I show up for SIM and among other problems, they said OK now we will tattoo you and I said no and they got all bitched off.  They are one way when you sit in their office fully dressed and a whole other kettle of fish when you are in a gown at their mercy- or naked.  I actually was going to continue there until I had an even worse email exchange with that doctor, whose name I have happily forgot.  So even though I was covered in their markings and had done the SIM, I got back to interviewing RAD ONCs.  The next one was my doc, Dr, Formenti, and she is truly amazing.  First thing she tells me is why they need the tattoos, which I hadn't considered.  it's not just for this course of treatment, its also to show the radiation techs where they already radiatied, in the case that my other boob would need radiation, to make sure there is no overlap. Well that changed my attitude completely.  My concentration camp friends in heaven want me to LIVE so go ahead and tattoo a frikin runway on me OK?  But Dr F kept talking.  She was previously in LA where everyone is or thinks they are a movie star and doesn't want the tattoos to show.  So she experimented with different colored inks and found this fluorescent tattoo ink.  This is how I began to be impressed with this doctor.  Unrelated, here is a pdf of how the fluorescent tattoos work, although this is certainly not the tattoo ink or stuff they used with me, but its interesting I think...Flourescent Tattooed Chickens

By the time I joined this train, everyone had already started their treatments, so it was pointless for me to say anything.  It came up when I saw CHER who hadn't begun yet, and could be useful to the May RADS group. BUT I can say this, as great as it is to have invisible tattoos, if I am ever in a situation where I forget to tell doctors I was previously radiated or can't speak for myself, they will have no way to know I was radiated there. Also any kind of surgery they have to do special ways for raditated boobs, so if heaven forbid you are in a car accident or anything, and you are not awake adn they rush you to emergency surgery, a good surgeon could spot your tattoos and do the right thing, but me, I'd be in trouble. So it's a bit dangerous too.  Even if you lose both boobs, there are other borders to consider, stomach, neck, back. pelvic...  So tattoos that show have a big serious advantage as well.  Still, given the choice, the idea of having boobs that glow in the dark was so Shagadelic and so me, I had to go for it.

I too did not know you had the option of refusing tatoos.  I got three during the SIM in blue.  Two days into treatment,  while I was laying on the treatment talble, l  was told they needed to do two more on the affected breast to line me up laterallly.  These were in black and the one on my breast was hardly noticeabe.  But after fourteen treatments a new therapist came in and said she was having trouble seeing the one on my breast so she redid it.  Hurt like crazy and bleed for five minutes.  When I got home and saw the results I was furious.  To me it was a reminder of all the things being done to me over which I had no control and I knew it would be there the rest of my life.  I was soooo mad I blew up at my next treatment (I developed shingles during treatment so my nerves were a bit raw.)  I met with the head of the clinic and the head therapist to discuss alternatives they could use for future patients, such as a washable marker or at least a brown tatoo, but they had deaf ears -excuses for anything I mentioned.  I vowed to continue the fight for them to change so reading how other clinics handle this is great.  I live in a very small town so clinic options were minimal.  I wish I had seen this site before but for me now, it is using my knowledge to help future patients.  Has anyone had a tatoo removed?  They told me at the clinic to go to a tatoo parlor!

I've had to spend over $500 getting the tattoos removed by laser.  I initially refused tattoos, but got bulied into them by the techs because the rad center was "very busy"  and I "would risk getting rads in the wrong place" without tattoos.  The marked me in 3 places,  Later I found out from another rad onc that the tattoos don't help prevent radiation to already irradiated places, no one can tell from the 3 tattoos which breast was burned, they look for scars and skin damage to tell what side.  Also, they need prior rad records to make sure fields don't overlap.  Like it's been said here before--anything to save a buck and minute of the staff's time--including permanently scarring a woman for a temporary treatment. 

My tatoos are so small, it's like someone took a tip of a pen and put one dot on my skin. Nobody else would ever notice them, and I have to look really hard to see them. Ruth

My doc doesn't use tattoos.  I got marked today with big x's and lines.  I thought they would be small like the tattoos.  Is this how other people here were marked?

Leigh and Leah, I thought I was the only one with a giant tic-tac-toe board on their boobie! My Dr never uses tattoos, and I thought I would just get little marker dots instead.  I have a bright blue sharpie line smack down the middle of my cleavage and the color keeps bleeding off to each side, so now I have blue-bies instead. 

Did your dr say you could do the touchup work yourself?  Mine did, and it kind of freaks me out. I am terrible at drawing straight lines......

Went today for my first rads, and they not only went over the lines, they added more!  Now I have a big purple box around the left "girl". Sheesh...glad it's winter and I'm wearing sweaters! I am marked up with three colors of ink from cleavage to under my arm, from 2" south of my collarbone to almost the bottom rib. Of course, DH thinks it's hilarious. Oh well, if that's the worst thing, I am doing ok.

1 down, 32 to go....