Medical journey leads to opening a tattoo business

Bruderheim could soon be getting a new home business to add to their growing home business directory.

Thirty-year-old resident Nakita Foster is looking forward to opening a home tattoo shop in the coming year.

“It was not in the plans but life has a way of deciding things for you,” she said.

In terms of life, today Foster, a wife and mom to five children, is lucky to be alive.

After surviving a stage three cancer diagnosis, Foster assumed life would go back to normal after the all clear from her doctor in 2019.

“He gave me the all clear in 2019, so I went back to work at Tim Hortons in Redwater and thought things would be fine,” she said. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Unbeknownst to her, several rounds of radiation and chemotherapy over the previous few months had left her with painful Radiation Proctitis, inflammation and damage to the lower part of her colon resulting from the therapy.

The condition left her unable to keep her job, which had her on her feet many hours a day. Rather than remain unemployed, Foster’s resourcefulness showed her another way to earn a living while doing something she loved and not putting strain on her body; tattooing.

When Foster was a 21-year-old healthcare aide in Vegreville, in 2011,  becoming a tattoo artist was the furthest thing from her mind. She had just finished her first year of nursing school, and gave birth to her first child; a boy she named Rylan.

“I moved to Bruderheim after he was born and met my husband there,” she said. Foster abandoned nursing school, got married and went on to have three more children over the next nine years, with the last, another son, named Lain, born in 2019. She also has a step daughter with her family.

“Things were great,” said Foster. “Things were going really well.”

Foster began having some health issues when Lain was only a few months old.

“I was worried it was a tubal pregnancy, so Jonathan drove me to the hospital,” she said. “It wasn’t a tubal pregnancy.”

Doctors found a large mass on Foster’s cervix. She had a biopsy done and ten days later the diagnosis.

“The wait was torture,” she said. “But they told me I had Clear Cell Carcinoma and it was a rare kind.”

Foster then endured a PET scan that not only showed her in stage three, but that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and intestinal wall.

“I went from nothing to something in eight months,” she said.

Although Foster was scared, she didn’t want to be discouraged.
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“I told my doctor, ok. What’s the treatment? When can we get started?” she said.

Foster began her treatments in Aug 2019 which included 25 rounds of chemotherapy and five rounds of radiation.

“Once those were done, I had to stay for three days and get internal radiation,” she said. “Fifteen minutes, then the next hour 15 more minutes and so on. Once the number of 15-minute treatments totalled 58 hours, I was done.”

Foster credits good medication for limiting the amount of time she was nauseous. Although she did not lose her hair, she said it became very brittle.

In Dec. 2019, Foster received the call she had been waiting for.

“The doctor told me I was cancer free and could return to work,” she said.

Foster felt excited and happy to return to her life. She resumed her job this past January and was happy to continue with life. Then in June Foster began to experience new symptoms.

“Of course, your thoughts go immediately to ‘I wonder if it’s back?’” she said. Foster went to her doctor who diagnosed her with another surprising issue. Intense radiation to save her life had left her with another condition; Radiation Proctitis, which created painful ulcers on her colon.

“There was no way I could keep my job. Standing that many hours a day puts too much stress on my body,” she said.

Foster’s doctor recommended Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy to ease her symptoms.

“The idea is to pump my body full of oxygen to help me heal quicker,” she said. “I went for 36 treatments.”

Foster’s treatments were successful, diminishing her symptoms and making life bearable again. Although her doctor is optimistic, he acknowledged that her symptoms could return at any time, making a regular job impossible.

“I started doing some thinking while I was having my treatments,” she said. “What can I do that would keep me off my feet but something I enjoy?”

Her thoughts went to her tattoos. Foster admired the artistry that went into the four tattoos she previously had done by an artist in Edmonton named Kim Sherman.

“I have always loved drawing and colour,” said Foster. “So, when I saw Kim next, I asked her if she would be interested in apprenticing me.”

Sherman was only too happy to oblige.

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Jana Semeniuk
Staff Reporter