Susan Grothe and Jennifer Turnquist. Photo: Chris Emeott
For breast cancer survivors, three-dimensional areola restorations uplift and empower.
When Jennifer Turnquist found out she had breast cancer in early 2023, her world shifted. “I had a long history of abnormal mammograms and had always been fine. But this time I wasn’t,” she says.
With a family history of breast cancer, the Stillwater resident moved forward with a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Turnquist was ready to fight, and she did. But what she didn’t realize until much later was the emotional toll of being left with a body that didn’t feel like hers anymore.
“Everything moves really quickly,” Turnquist says. “You don’t really, as a woman, have time to process the physical changes that are going to happen to your body because … you’re worried about getting the cancer out.”
Due to risks associated with surgery, about 75 percent of mastectomies involve a removal of the nipple and areola, says Lisa Hamilton, M.D., FACS, a breast surgeon at Minnesota Oncology. “You don’t think that’s a big deal, until it’s gone,” Turnquist says. “… I just felt like my breasts just looked like blobs, and that was a lot harder for me to deal with than I expected.”
In January 2024, Turnquist opted for a three-dimensional areola restoration, a medical tattoo that recreates the natural look of a nipple and areola with a 3D effect. Her research led her to Susan Grothe, a cosmetic and medical tattoo artist and the owner of Lasting Impression in Lake Elmo.
Grothe is one of few trained medical tattoo artists in the state who focus on 3D areola restoration. She describes the two-hour, minimally painful procedure as “life-changing” for women recovering from breast cancer, as well as those who have received a breast reduction or preventative mastectomy or who have seen a loss of pigmentation due to menopause.
“[When] you get diagnosed with cancer, the rug is pulled out from underneath your feet,” Grothe says. “… The oncologist is removing the cancer. Next in line is the plastic surgeon reconstructing the breast, but neither of them are really concerned with the aesthetics.”
Dr. Hamilton notes that very few plastic surgery clinics offer medical tattooing. “Many [plastic surgeons] only offer a tissue-based reconstruction, where they take skin from somewhere else to create a mound that looks like a nipple,” Hamilton says. “… The advantages of going to someone that that’s all they do, like Susan, is that they have a better eye for it, and it’s a little more artistic than medical.”
Grothe is an artist who works with a not-so-blank canvas—a human with a completely unique skin tone and shape, a beautiful landscape with scars and contours. Her goal is to create a restoration that’s perfectly imperfect, using color swatching, shading and blending techniques. She works with tools and pigments that are specific to 3D areola restoration, making the finished result both realistic and permanent.
With the knowledge that 1 in 8 women born in the United States will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, Grothe and Turnquist are passionate about spreading awareness about 3D areola restoration. “I’ve never been able to do anything that really gave back something at such a personal level. And that’s when it started to [feel like] a calling,” Grothe says.
“We were both in tears after she was done,” Turnquist says. “She was so excited about how good it looked, and I was excited because … I was starting to feel a little bit more like my old self.
“I felt like I got something back that I had lost,” she says.
Lasting Impression
11200 Stillwater Blvd. N., Lake Elmo; 952.207.4899
Facebook: Lasting Impression Permanent Make Up
Instagram: @sglastingimpression
