Tattoo artist helps cure cancer blues
April 25, 2011Tracy Hanes
At age 26, Kyla Gutsche was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. But surgery and chemotherapy treatments were only the beginning of her ordeal.
Distressed by her appearance from the side-effects of chemo, she turned to a tattoo artist to replicate her lost eyebrows and simulate lipstick. But a severe allergic reaction to the pigments disfigured her lips and caused lumpy granulomas to form.
Gutsche, a professor of art and art history at Oxford University in England at the time, sought out plastic surgeon Dr. Jean-Paul Tiziano, a world leader in micropigmentation, or medical tattooing, who repaired her damaged features.
The experience inspired Gutsche to learn the skill herself, so she apprenticed with Tiziano. Now she runs Cosmetic Transformations in Peterborough.
“As a cancer patient, you don’t want to be reminded that you are sick,” says Gutsche, now 37 and cancer-free. “You don’t have eyebrows and hair and people stare. It’s very hard because you don’t recognize yourself. You look in the mirror and don’t recognize yourself or don’t feel whole.”
She says wellness goes beyond physical recovery. Psychological studies have proven that when people believe they look better, they feel better.
Although Gutsche offers esthetic work such as permanent makeup, most of her work is with medical patients and cancer survivors.
She works with Peterborough plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr. Bert Van Brenk. She is renowned for the 3-D areolas she tattoos on breast-cancer patients who have undergone reconstruction. Male cancer patients often come to her for replacement of lost eyebrows or facial stubble.
OHIP now funds areola tattooing, but Gutsche used to perform the service for free for patients who couldn’t afford it.
Gutsche, who trained in England, France and Vancouver, draws on Leonardo da Vinci’s principles of light and shade to render nipples realistically. She won an international medical innovation award for Titian Wash, a skin and scar camouflage technique inspired by the glazing techniques of Renaissance artist Titian.
Her patients come from across the GTA, although one woman travelled from Kenya after reading about her on the Internet. One A-list Hollywood celebrity has also used her services.
One of her favourite clients was a woman in her late 70s who had Gutsche tattoo areolas on her reconstructed breasts. The patient and her husband, in his early 80s, brought a men’s magazine to the clinic as an illustration of how they wanted they wanted it to look.
“She was so pleased, she flashed her breasts to everyone in the office and said to her husband, ‘Honey, tonight we’re making love with the lights on!’ ” Gutsche says. “That’s why I love my job. It isn’t about the cosmetic side; it’s about making people feel more confident and not having to think about what made them insecure.”
She uses Biotic Phocea pigments, the only ones approved as a medical device for implantation into the skin. Although pigments commonly used by tattoo artists are approved by Health Canada, Gutsche points out they are approved for cosmetic use, not implantation.
She continues to lobby Health Canada for legislation to regulate tattoo pigment safety. In addition to the risk of allergic reactions, she says the pigments can interfere with MRIs or radiation treatments.
“Educating physicians and other tattoo artists about pigment safety is a cause dear to me,” she says.
Several years ago, Gutsche returned to her hometown of Calgary and looked up an old high school crush, Eliot Beaubien, on the Internet. He is a nephrologist (kidney specialist) practicing in Peterborough. They married three years ago.
Although Gutsche had fertility-sparing surgery while battling her ovarian cancer, she suffered five miscarriages during a previous marriage. She and Beaubien have had two children: Alexander, 18 months, and Althea, six months.
“We have these two special kids and it shows you, miracles really can happen,” she says.
Gutsche is a long-time volunteer with Look Good, Feel Better, a program that teaches cancer patients how to apply makeup so they can feel normal again. She also co-organized (with Norma Butcher and Shelley Peeples) the first Walk of Hope for Ovarian Cancer in Peterborough. The third-annual walk will be on Sept. 11.
The first Walk of Hope was held just four days after she had given birth to her first child by Caesarian section, so she wasn’t able to participate. But her husband and newborn son took part.
Gutsche says ovarian cancer is not well known, even though one in 70 Canadian women will be diagnosed with it.
Many other fundraisers, such as the Terry Fox Run, do not contribute funds to ovarian cancer research or treatment. Ovarian Cancer Canada is the only national charity dedicated to overcoming the disease, which is one of the deadliest cancers if it’s not caught in the early stages. Ninety per cent of women will survive if detection is early.
“It’s the disease that whispers before it roars,” says Gutsche. “A lot of the symptoms, such as bloating, cramping, weight changes, are chalked up to menopause or as flu.”
When Gutsche started having symptoms, her doctor dismissed her concerns as either flu or job-related stress. Her cancer was discovered only when an ovarian cyst ruptured, leading to the early diagnosis that saved her life.
Copyright Tracy Hanes at www.healthzone.ca
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