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| image by Belen Galan via sxc.hu |
The scars we carry are a road map of the life we lived. They remind us of what we’ve been through and we can use that knowledge to move us forward. It’s easy to forget those dark times in life, but there’s wisdom in the pain of the past.
I have scars from my head to my feet.
The first one I got when my mother went into labor with me and my head got trapped under her pelvis. The dent in the bone can be felt if you press my forehead. I was three when I cut my left index finger while helping my mom peel potatoes. Following this I cut my arm left arm running around our coffee table. The wound was such that when I flexed my muscle blood gushed out.
When I was four I found a snail and my mother’s friend gave me a glass jar shaped like a Christmas tree to put it in. While going up the stairs into our apartment I slipped. The jar shattered and a shard of glass punctured my left side.
We lived in Western Germany at the time and my dad had to take me to the hospital on base. On the way there the engine of our red neeson caught fire. Dad put it out with Mom’s Pepsi but the car wouldn’t start so he carried me the rest of the way to the hospital, blood streaming down my side as we went. After the doc poked around inside me for what felt like forever he sowed me up with four metal stitches. They hurt like hell coming out.
In fourth grade I had to have brain surgery to remove to a cystic mass above my right temporal lobe. Afterwards the right side of face swelled up like a balloon. The day after surgery I had a massive seizure that lasted over three hours. My stay lasted three months and I received 211 staples.
A few days after surgery one of the staples got caught on the arm board of my IV and I pulled it out in my sleep. When I awoke the next morning my pillow and most of bed spread was cover in blood. I freaked out but after taking a look at it the doctor said I was fined and ,with a kachink, he put a new staple in my head. Weeks later when they took the staples out number two-hundred-eleven was hadn’t healed yet. I kept picking at the hole left by it and they eventually had to close
it with three sutures.
Over the years my collections of scars continued to increase, but the one that holds the most significance to me is the one on my right wrist. I was seven and stuck in the ICU of Children’s Hospital due to complications from an allergic reaction to antibiotics.
I’d been there for almost a year and by that point they resorted to sewing IVs where ever they could: feet, toes, inner things, stomach, etc. On the day in question they tried to one into the artery in my wrist. the needle ruptured the arterial wall and my wrist swelled up to the size of a tennis ball. My parents took one look and called the doctors in.
They diagnosed an aneurysm, disinfected the area and did the surgery right there in my room. With no anesthesia or pain killers the first incision sent waves of pain up my arm, but things only got worse from there. I don’t know how long the operation took because I blacked out four or five times.
When they were done I was left with 37 stitches and a six inch scar on my tiny arm. As I grew it shrunk, but I still remember the pain of it all. Whenever I think I can’t go on or when things get tough I look down at it and know that if I survived that I can survive anything.