Ink-A-Dink-A-Do and Aunt D

Whew, did I sleep last night! In bed by midnight, up at nine-thirty, nice.

Below are some photographs of the matching tattoos Mum and I got this weekend. We wanted to get a sort of memorial tattoo for Aunt D, who has inoperable pancreatic cancer and has been undergoing treatment for it. Aggressive treatment.

We decided on a design that reflects the things Aunt D loves ( besides her family, I mean). She loves to be out in the sun (something she's been denied for the last year or so because the treatment makes sun worship impossible), and she loves dolphins, so a dolphin leaping in front of the sun seemed a good idea. We decided on a Maori inspired design.

We wanted to have the tattoos done at FPG because the artist there did some work on me before and I like his work. It's also a little deeper than that - Atlanta is crawling with fine tattoo artists...but we wanted them done in a more spiritually energized arena, somewhere that the work was more than just ink...somewhere the artists knew it had deeper meaning and respected that. It's a bit difficult to put into words.

There were several artists available, and we ended up getting a young lady who was at her first FPG instead of the fellow we intended, a lass named Dana. She's relatively new to the tattooing game, which made us a little nervous, but she answered honestly and listened carefully and we decided to go with her work. Good choice. She was slow, meticulous, and keenly interested in getting it right.

We came home to a pile of e-mails, which I ignored until I could post a quick blog when I got home last night. Buried in the in box was an e-mail from Uncle T that Aunt D is done with treatment - not for the happy reasons. It seems old Mr. C has become resistant to the treatment. Aunt D's doctor suggested not subjecting her to the awful side effects of treatment and instead focusing on keeping her as pain free as possible.

Well, shit.

Here's to Aunt D and the hope that she either finds the resources within herself to kick Big C's ass or that she has an easy, painless transition from this life to the next.

Mum's tattoo, right arm.

My tattoo, right arm. Do you know how difficult it is to shoot a pic of your own right arm? In focus? Yeah, neither did I until I tried it.