NIP-NIPS

Years ago while I was attending a church meeting, I couldn’t help notice the lovely woman sitting in front of me. She was dressed immaculately, her hair pulled up into an elegant coiffure. Her perfume held a sweet aroma that tickled my nose. In her arms she held a new born babe, while another child around the age of two sat next to her. This lovely lady looked like the perfect personification of a young mother.  It was about that time in the meeting that the speakers mowere in transition, so the meeting room was somewhat quiet when the little girl in front of me turned to her mother, and in a childish voice, asked for a “nip, nip?”

A nip-nip? Red candied nips?

Oh how sweet. She calls her candy nip-nips, (or so I thought?)

Boy was I wrong!

To my shock, the mother pulled down her dress, let her little girl climb on her lap and latch on to a dusty rose nipple.

WTH?

Well, at least I now knew what a nip-nip was, and yes, it brought a new meaning to the word eye-candy. So now when I think about nipples, I can’t help but call them nip, nips. Which brings me to the epic question . . . just how important are those nip, nips?

Well, I guess it depends on the individual. I can honestly say that when I had nip-nips, they brought me pleasure and pain. They nourished my children, alerted me to changes in temperature, and damn near poked an eye out a time or two when temperatures reached sub-zero realms.

So now that I’ve reached the all-time point in reconstruction, I have to consider the question . . . do I or do I not get nip-nips?

Yes, there are down and upsides to reconstructive nipples, for one thing, nipples make you look and feel normal. On the down side, they poke out, (but then they kinda have to, ‘cause it’s just the way their made.) There’s also the option of tattooing, but then if I want a tattoo, why get a nipple tattoo when I could always get something exotic instead of an areola? 

Bottom line - it all comes down to what makes an individual look and feel complete, normal and whole again.

As I was contemplating my options, nip-nips verses not nip-nips, I learned about "Vinnies". What are Vinnies? Well for those going for a real look to help them feel and look normal, there is an amazing tattoo artist in New York, named Vinnie. He started doing 3-D nipple tattooing years ago. Women have flown all over the world to have Vinnie recreates images of their nipples.  Recently, Vinnie decided he wanted to get back into the artistic side of his tattooing, and so he opted to stop doing nipple tattoos. (Coincidentally, on the day he decided to quit tattooing nipples, he got a call that changed his life.) Vinnie's sister called to say that she’d just been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was in that moment, that Vinnie decided tattooing nipples for his clientele was serving a greater purpose.

Now, on that note, I it's safe to say that I still haven’t decided one way or another on nipples. For now I think I’m just going to stick with the Barbie doll look, but one thing’s for sure, I won’t be whipping out any nip-nips anytime soon!