Tender Tanks
Carol Largent survived breast cancer. She invented a shirt that makes getting dressed easier for women facing the disease.
"We grew up as 'make-do' people," Carol Largent remembers. She comes from a family full of inventors. Her dad patented a plumbing wrench, her grandmother gave old clothes new flair with a few well-placed alterations, and she and her siblings developed a knack for making their own fun out of whatever was available. "If we didn't have what we needed, we figured out what we did have and made it work."
Decades later, in 2011, Carol's inventive spirit would make all the difference during a hard, scary time. She was an elementary school teacher with two teenagers of her own when she got a "horrible gut feeling" about her health, went to her doctor, and got the bad news. "I had breast cancer in three different places," she says. "Through the surgery, doctors found that the whole right side of my breast was cancer."
Getting sick and ultimately going through a double mastectomy, Carol experienced a role reversal. "Teachers are used to being the ones taking care of everybody," she explains. "I'm a pretty independent gal. As I was having everything stripped away from me, I at least wanted to keep some sort of independence and dignity."
Specifically, Carol wanted to be able to dress herself, even though pain flared whenever she raised her arms. "That's when my creativity really paid off," she says. "I made several prototypes before I went into surgery!" The prototypes were for a tank top with adjustable Velcro straps. Carol could put it on without having to lift her arms over head, and the stretchy fabric was far more convenient and comfortable for constant, often invasive, doctors' appointments. "And you don't have to deal with those paper hospital gowns, which are hideous and so scratchy," she says with a laugh.
Carol's mindset quickly shifted – she started thinking, "how can I take my experience, pay it forward, and make another woman's experience better?"
She put a few of her tank tops in a basket and delivered them to several other women in her community, who were going through something similar. She hoped to "make things a little bit less hectic," and the recipients told her that the tank tops helped. This gave Carol confidence that her invention could make a difference beyond her own backyard. She launched Tender Tanks and began selling them on Amazon, also participating in the Amazon Exclusives program. "I thought of Amazon because I shop there all the time, and it's accessible to anyone across the country."
An Amazon customer who gave Tender Tanks a five-star review wrote, "the ease to put on, take off, or lower to care for my surgery sites was so convenient and also comfortable to wear. Especially when I was not allowed to raise my arms. When I went to my doctor's appointment I felt like I was wearing the best kept secret in town, no paper gowns to change into."
And while these shirts were originally intended for women going through chemotherapy, mastectomy, or reconstruction, Carol says "they just keep morphing into new uses." People recovering from shoulder surgery are also becoming her customers.
"It kind of gives me a purpose," she says. "Having cancer is what happened to me, but look what was generated out of my experience! I put my whole soul out there with this project. And now, thinking about how many lives I can touch kind of brings me to tears."
Each Tender Tank tag includes a heartfelt message from the inventor herself: "Find your inner strength, stay positive, and repeat, I can."