Breast cancer survivor gets tattoo over scars, ends up falling in love with the artist
When Nina Cristinacce was diagnosed with cancer, her life was turned on its head. After successful treatment and a mastectomy, she decided to celebrate her life with a beautiful floral tattoo.
But when Cristinacce went along to get her tattoo, little did she know that she'd end up falling in love.
Cristinacce wanted to get a tattoo to hide some of the scars she'd gained after her surgery.
"A logical thought was to tattoo the parts of my body I didn’t like to look at, and developed the idea of sunflowers and poppies running up one side from my thigh, over my ribs, up to my reconstructed breast and spilling over onto my back," said Cristinacce.
"What I didn’t bargain for was falling in love with the tattoo artist who made the design for me, but when you have had cancer you take life by the horns," she continued. "We started dating six months after we first met, and a year later, Shane moved in with me and my children," Cristinacce said.
Cristinacce said that having cancer has changed her completely as a person.
"I used to have quite low self-esteem, but I am far more confident now and have a far more positive outlook on life," she says.
"Now I feel people will like me or not like me, and that I can do anything I want to."
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
