Off Duty

With so many friends and family telling Michelle Brezden she should compete, last year the Campbell River nurse entered the 2020 Inked magazine cover girl tattoo contest. "I think when there's a tattoo competition going on, people who know me just think about me!" she states. "It's hard not to when my body is covered with beautiful art." 

The annual competition winner receives $25,000 and a feature on the cover of the magazine. The public cast votes through Facebook and can purchase additional votes in support of a charity. Partial proceeds earned from purchased votes went to the MusiCares Foundation, which provides critical health and welfare services to the music community.  

Brezden ultimately came in an impressive second out of 36,000 other competitors.  

She says she's always loved the look of tattoos, but never thought she would eventually be covered in them. She got her first tattoo when she was twenty-one. "It was a Japanese sign on my back that signified heaven and earth, and now 85 percent of my body is covered," she says.   

Brezden, who is in her late thirties, began her nursing career in long-term care three years ago. But she didn't stay in the sector for long. "I realized I wanted more acuity, so I switched to the surgical unit at Campbell River General Hospital," she reports. "I love everything about nursing. From the beginning to the end, connecting with families and patients and caring for them." 

"I noticed that it actually takes away from the internal pain I feel daily."

- Michelle Brezden

Brezden also likes being able to help comfort patients through their pain. "Having experienced pain with my fibromyalgia, I recognize that 'everyone's pain is what they say it is' not what you think it is," she asserts. Diagnosed at age 25, she has found that getting tattoos helps deal with the pain of the disorder. "It is very euphoric for me, and I noticed that it actually takes away from the internal pain I feel daily."    

Patients have had mixed reactions to her tattoos she reports. "When I first started getting inked and was nursing it was definitely a problem for some. I would encounter lots of comments of how gross it was." She also initially covered up for interviews. "I think that if I did not, then I probably wouldn't have gotten my jobs," she discloses. 

"But now it seems as most everyone has at least one tattoo," says Brezden. "Everyone wants to have a look at my art, and they compliment me all the time." She hopes people see past her tattoos, "It's just skin and I like to decorate mine with art."  

"I imagine people get tattoos for a lot of different reasons", she says. "I think some people do it for the art, some do it for therapy, and others for memories." Brezden says her father, who passed away from a brain aneurysm in 2003, was very special to her. "I have a tattoo of my father's birth and death on the right side of my rib cage, and above, it reads The Dance. He used to sing that to me all the time." 

Going forward, Brezden says the Inked competition was fun, but she doesn't plan to do it again. "It did however make my social media grow like crazy," she laughs. Most of her art was created in collaboration with artist Ryan Tree at Golden Anchor Tattoos in Willow Point. Will she get more tattoos? "Yes, for sure, but I'm never sure what we will come up with," she exclaims. • 

UPDATE (Summer/Fall 2021)