The Breast Fit We're Helping Cancer Survivors Feel Good

The Kiwi Couple Have Given Prosthetics a Comfy Lift

- Donna Fleming

It was a challenge Tim Carr couldn’t refuse. He and his partner Fay Cobbett were out walking when they began talking about the fact that Fay, a breast cancer survivor, found her prosthetic breast so uncomfortable that she’d stopped wearing it.

“I was mostly okay about going around lopsided because it was better than the alternative and Tim understood why,” recalls Fay. “But on that day, he said he didn’t like people looking at me and making judgements without knowing why I looked like I did.

“So I said to him, ‘If you can get me something better, then I will wear it.’ And he said, ‘Okay.’”

Tim’s decision to take up Fay’s challenge has not only made a huge difference to her, but looks set to make life post-surgery much better for many other women who’ve had mastectomies.

After that conversation two years ago, Tim – who runs an electronics, robotics and 3D printing company called MindKits with Fay – got together with colleague Jason Barnett to design a prosthesis tailored specifically to his partner, and made on a 3D printer. The prosthesis they came up with is so comfortable that Fay wears it all the time and barely notices it’s there.

Fay (38) and Tim (40) have since set up a company called myReflection to make prostheses for other women, and Fay hopes they’ll get the same benefits she has.

“It’s been a huge gift for me,” tells Fay. “After everything I went through with cancer, it’s just made life much easier.”

Aucklander Fay, who is mum to Zoe (8) and Sophie (5), was 35 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. She was still breastfeeding Sophie and thought the lump she could feel was a blocked duct due to mastitis. But it turned out that she had infiltrating ductal carcinoma, which had spread to her lymph nodes.