Diabetes Pump Tattoo

Five-year-old Jacob was born with Type 1 Diabetes and in order to survive, he needed a diabetes pump.  The pump made Jacob feel different from his classmates, so his parents decided to tattoo a pump on their stomach so their son wouldn’t feel alone.

"It broke my heart," [Jacob's mom Camille] Boivin recalled.  She explained to her son that all kids are different; while some may wear glasses, others may have braces or wheelchairs.  Although there was another kid in the area with a pump, there was no one that was Jacob’s age.

Although Boivin and Aumond could not get real insulin pumps, they felt that an ink version would help soften their son's loneliness.

The tattoo had to be artistic and look like the real thing, Boivin said, so they researched tattoo artists on the Internet and found Bruno Oeuvray in Joliette.

"Jacob was thrilled. It was magical to see his eyes," Boivin said, her voice wavering with emotion. "Even today I have tears in my eyes."

MontrealGazette.com reported, “Aumond's tattoo has a barbed wire string where the catheter would be attached to the pump, a visual reminder of painful injections and ‘having to pierce the skin several times of day for a drop of blood’ that the condition imposes on patients. Boivin's tattoo catheter trails to her back where it transforms into an almond-tree branch with pink flowers.”

"It's a symbol of hope for a cure one day," Boivin said of the almond blooms.

Both parents are proud to flash their stomachs to show their tattoos, they joke about being proud “pompists.”

“We represent thousands of parents," Boivin said. "This is a serious illness and it can be fatal if it's not controlled."

Source: neatorama.com