Registered nurse Elizabeth Wilkie has been helping cancer patients for years; first as a radiation therapist and then as a medical oncologist at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital's Cancer Center. These days she puts her medical experience and her sensitivity to patients' needs together through a unique business in Old Lyme: Pink Ribbon Boutique.

With its hardwood floors, warm mustard-yellow walls and large window with luxurious drapes, it's an inviting space. Inside you'll find locally made one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry, skin care products imported from France, soft and stylish pajamas, hats, scarves and quirky note cards.

But the real mission of Pink Ribbon lies at the rear of the store in a private area with a large mirror, a settee and a closet neatly stacked with a variety of breast prostheses and mastectomy bras. Here, Wilkie tends to breast cancer patients who have had mastectomies. She fits them for prosthetics — off the shelf or custom made — and the accompanying bras, lingerie and bathing suits.

Wilkie, a certified mastectomy fitter, opened the boutique in 2001 in Niantic after hearing breast cancer patients tell of their difficult experiences walking into a pharmacy to buy a prosthetic breast. She moved the boutique to the Old Lyme Shopping Center in early 2005.

"I would hear horror stories," Wilkie recalls. "To have to walk into a pharmacy and say ‘I have to order a breast today.' When you lose a part of yourself, that's incredibly difficult."

She felt there had to be a way to ease that part of the breast cancer experience. She began doing research and visiting women's health boutiques and pharmacies to determine what worked and what didn't.

Wilkie and her mom, Elaine Wojcik, a retired teacher who manages the boutique, also handle billing and phone calls to insurance companies, which cover most and sometimes all of the cost of prosthetics and bras, a positive industry development for patients.

As far as the prosthetics themselves, those options have improved, too. For $20 she can buy a fabric "puff" to line the bra (like something you'd see in a padded bra) while a silicone form off the shelf is $300. For $3,000 a woman can order a prosthetic custom made of a lightweight, soft plastic with an air pocket inside. That way, when someone hugs you, the prosthetic gives the way a breast would.

The custom prosthetics are made by scanning an image of the intact breast into a computer and flipping it, to make a duplicate. A mold of the woman's chest wall is made so the prosthetic fits like a puzzle piece, Wilkie says.

Before a woman can be fitted for a prosthetic, the surgical site must heal. This can take two to six weeks. "They need to be comfortable to be able to take off and put on a bra and to be able to stand (for the fitting)," Wilkie says. "It's not easy."

Wilkie's boutique offers privacy and discretion throughout the process. Clients are referred by doctors or word of mouth and make appointments for their fittings. If a woman is undergoing chemotherapy and is advised to avoid crowds, Wilkie will see the woman after hours or on the weekend. She says she makes herself available whenever the client needs her to be, whether its 8 a.m. or 9 p.m.

"We're trying to be as discreet as possible," Wilkie says. "Occasionally, I'll close the store down for a private appointment. They don't want to have to worry about running into someone in the store."

Yet, Pink Ribbon is a genuine boutique so clients can run into an acquaintance, and the person need never realize the main mission of the cute shop.

And those stylish goods Wilkie carries serve a purpose to the cancer patient. The skin creams and lotions in the L'Occitane line from France are all natural and won't interfere with a patient's chemotherapy regimen. The scarves and hats are stylish alternatives to turbans for women who've lost their hair. The soft pajamas are made of a material that wicks moisture away from the skin, vital to women suffering the hot flashes that are a common side effect to the breast cancer medicine, Tamoxifen.

The store also has a small maternity section with the latest in breast pumps for nursing mothers. It's not as incongruous as it seems, Wilkie notes. She sees the store as serving women throughout the cycle of life and wants to get the word out that women who breast feed reduce their chances of getting breast cancer.

Wilkie sees patient and public education as important components of her business. Along those lines she's working on a breast cancer education program with Middlesex Hospital in Middletown and will be organizing a Race for the Cure in East Lyme next year.

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