Every day Lisa woke up, saw the tiny dot and remembered the worst days of her life
Every morning for five years Lisa Mansfield woke up, saw the tiny green dot in the centre of her chest and remembered some of the worst moments of her life.
It started in 2019, when she spotted a mammogram image pinned to the wall in a private room at her local breast screening clinic.
"I thought, 'That doesn't look good. The poor person in front of me,'" she tells 9honey. "But it was mine."
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Lisa Mansfield with her husband (right) and two daughters (left and centre). Supplied/Lisa Mansfield
Mansfield was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer that very day and though she's grateful it was caught early, the diagnosis blindsided her.
There was no family history and she hadn't experienced any symptoms, or even noticed a lump.
The only reason she'd even gone for a mammogram was because she got a reminder as part of the 'Turning 50' breast check scheme, but she never dreamed it would actually lead to a cancer diagnosis.
"It was such a shock. And my poor husband, I rang him ... and I just burst into tears," she says.
The mammogram revealed a small lump in her breast and Mansfield underwent a biopsy to confirm it was breast cancer then and there.
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Doctors wanted to cut out the cancer and start Mansfield on radiation therapy as quickly as possible, so surgery was booked for two days' time.
Every day 58 people in Australia will be diagnosed with breast cancer and nine people die from the disease. That's over 3,300 lives lost each year.
One in seven women are diagnosed in their lifetime and though the relative five-year survival rate for breast cancer is 92 per cent, Mansfield was afraid.
Her cancer had been caught early and doctors felt positive about her prognosis but that didn't make it any easier for her to go home and tell her daughters, both of whom were in their early 20s.
"You hear such horror stories."
"One kind of had an idea [that something was wrong] but the other was completely blown away," Mansfield says. There were a lot of tears that night.
About 48 hours after her diagnosis, Mansfield underwent surgery to remove the lump and a single gland under her arm.
Not long after, doctors sat her down and told her about the tattoos. It was a conversation she never expected to have.
Before radiation treatment, patients must be measured and marked with tiny dots that are permanently tattooed onto their bodies to line them up for treatment every day.
These tattoos are usually placed near the area being treated, so Mansfield ended up with several around her breast. One was even placed in the centre of her chest.
Mansfield's radiation tattoo before laser treatment. Supplied/Lisa Mansfield
It's a step in the cancer treatment process that most Australians don't know about and Mansfield didn't know how to feel.
"It's like the choices are taken away from you. I mean, you know you need it [treatment] but the choice to get a tattoo is so personal," she says.
Nine weeks of daily radiation was grueling and left her covered in painful blisters, so she didn't think much about the tattoos until after treatment, when she was declared cancer-free.
That's when the tattoos started to bother her. They were a daily reminder of one of the worst times of her life, inked into her skin forever.
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"As soon as I looked at it every morning, I'd want to get rid of it," she says. Then the guilt would creep in.
"You hear such horror stories … I really didn't feel that I had the right to whinge or complain about anything because I was still very healthy and I didn't lose my breast."
For five years, Mansfield put up with it until a walk through her local Westfield changed everything.
Mansfield only went for a mammogram because she got a reminder in the mail. Supplied/Lisa Mansfield
Earlier this year, Mansfield's daughter pointed out a tattoo removal clinic on a mother-daughter shopping trip and Mansfield, feeling brave, approached the staff.
"I said, 'I've got a couple of dots tattooed, one in the middle of my chest. How much would it cost to have it removed?'" she says.
Expecting to be quoted a few hundred dollars at least, she was floored by the five words that came out of the clinic worker's mouth: "We do those for free."
Mansfield teared up right there in the clinic, as did her daughter.
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"Nothing's free these days, you know? It was so lovely," she says.
The clinic provides free radiation tattoo removal treatment to cancer survivors, provided their oncologist grants permission.
Mansfield has since had four treatments and describes the pain as minimal and brief. There's no downtime either.
Mansfield's radiation tattoo after laser treatment. Supplied/Lisa Mansfield
Mansfield no longer has to live with permanent reminders of her cancer journey on her skin and is glad services like this exist for survivors who want to make use of them.
Not everyone who receives radiation tattoos as part of cancer treatment wants to remove the marks and she respects that, but it's been a healing experience for her.
"It's a personal choice and if it's something you don't want on your body, it can be removed."
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