I've always been a fan of tattoos. Ever since high school, I've doodled ideas for tattoos in my notebook. But when it came to turning those ideas into actual tattoos, I didn't know exactly where I should start.
Then in 2012, I almost lost my battle with CF. I had walking pneumonia for four months prior to collapsing outside while landscaping. I spent a month in the ICU. During my hospital stay, I experienced several physical complications -- extreme hypoxemia (low concentration of oxygen in the blood), allergic reactions to pain meds, and temporary paralysis from the sedatives I was given, to name a few. I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the incredibly intense and long hospitalization. Traditional talk therapy can be a challenge for me, so I wanted to do something creative to work through my trauma. While thinking of ways to cope, I came up with the idea of combining all of my tattoo ideas into a full sleeve tattoo dedicated to my CF story.
Keep in mind, I had never gotten a tattoo before. I was nervous, but I thought if I could get through such a painful hospitalization, I could sit through a few uncomfortable tattoo appointments for a piece of art that would mean the world to me. My tattoo artist, who is a friend of mine, looked at all of my ideas and we put together a mock sleeve. I was instantly in love with how our rough draft came out, so I decided to go “all in” and make my very first tattoo an entire sleeve.
My CF sleeve has a nautical theme because of how important salty air has been throughout my recovery journey. Starting from the top, there is a rose representing the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Below it, on the outside of my arm, there is a portrait of a captain's skull to show that even though I don't always look sick, this is the reality of the disease. Right next to the captain's skull, there is a ship. Just like a captain always goes down with their ship, a person goes down with their cystic fibrosis.
On the inside of my bicep, there is an anchor tangled in the tentacles of something foreign. An anchor, just like CF, stops and can control an entire vessel. Then, my will is represented inside of a bottle along the basilic vein of my arm, closest to the center of my body and towards my heart. The bottle is floating through a storm, which is the whole background of my sleeve.
On my forearm, there is a shark chomping through an oxygen tank. The shark is wrapped in a banner that has my gene mutation, G551D, followed by “I am the hero of this story.”
On the inside of my forearm, there is a scuba diver armed with a knife, but they are still being strangled by something foreign, showing that sometimes you can't win every battle. Pictured below the scuba diver, there is Poseidon with his trident, which represents an alternative force that can change everything in the blink of an eye, like beginning Kalydeco® five years ago did for me.
I ended the sleeve with a sailor's rope. Ropes on ships go through endless storms, just as a CFer does with their health battles; but no matter what storms the ropes and ship go through, they always seem to make it out in the end.
I recently continued my story on my calf with a similar nautical-themed sleeve, anchored to my foot with another rope to keep me grounded.
It took approximately 25 hours to finish the tattoo and it was SO worth it. If you were to ask me what my most prized possession is, it would be this sleeve. Literal blood, sweat, and tears went into its creation and the story itself -- and I couldn't be prouder to display it on my body.
