Scars

The topic of my blog today is...scars. I have been looking at my knee...trying to picture what it will look like after this surgery. My knee is not scar free. I have a few scars on it.

Here is a picture of the scars that exist already... not a great picture...kind of ugly actually....but it is hard to photograph my own knee. If you look at the scars there are three pretty visible ones. The two darker smaller scars are from the arthroscopic surgery I had in March. The one that is almost in the center has been with me much longer. This scar was the result of a birthday accident.... I am sure many of you will be able to use your psychic powers to foretell how I got the scar by simply reading the beginning of this story... so here goes.... No laughing, ok? Okay.... so it was my eighth birthday. I was very excited with my birthday presents...a new pair of sandals and a new jump-rope. (Did the psychics figure it out yet?) I remember my dad leaving for work that day and telling me to have a great birthday and to have fun with my presents. I also remembered that he cautioned me...he said, "Don't use them at the same time." Did I heed his advice? Nope. I put on my new sandals, got my new jump-rope, and headed outside to our gravel driveway. I began jump-roping singing one of the songs I sang while jump-roping...Strawberry shortcake, apple pie, who will be the lucky guy.... A, B, C.... and before I knew it I caught my jump-rope BETWEEN my toes and one of my my new sandals...and...crashed to the ground. TIMBER!!!

Fortunately I do not recall the pain from that fall, but I remember fearing that I may get in trouble because I had disobeyed my dad. I also don't remember how I got into my house, but I remember crying and remember the blood flowing down my leg. I remember my mom scooping me up and taking me into the bathroom to clean me up. I remember she tried to position me on the edge of the tub so that I couldn't see my knee and told me not to look...but I did. Our tub was yellow...the 70's shade of yellow and I remember seeing my red blood running across the base of the tub into the drain. I also remember mom needing to use tweezers to get out all the little pebbles that were embedded into my knee. Mom stayed calm as she poured peroxide over my knee, dug out all the dirt, and bandaged me up. How did she stay so calm? I am not sure...because it was pretty gross. I didn't go to the hospital and never got any stitches, but it healed. And it scarred.

The redness of the scar has faded over the course of the last 24 years, but it is there...as is the memory of that day. I share that story with my students when they are taking their health class. In that class they have to tell about an injury they experienced and how it could have been prevented. My story is a good example. How could my accident have been avoided? By listening to my dad...yup...

I have other scars... on my elbow there are small scars from when I learned to ride my bike. I was camping at Knowlton's campground with my grandparents and Grampie let go after he told me he wouldn't. Even though I got hurt, he helped me learn to ride my bike. On my right knee I have another large scar...not from jump-roping, but from slipping on gravel that covered a paved hilltop. Smaller scars cover my hands...from being scratched when I played basketball...I have a larger scar on the inside of my left hand...from falling when I was rushing to get to work one summer day.

Scars tell stories...most of mine tell stories of me being less than graceful...stories of accidents or being a klutz...so what is the big deal about a scar that will be intentional, from surgery? Is it the size of the scar that intimidates me? Is it that I am allowing myself to fear the operation itself? We associate surgery as a bad thing...no matter what kind of surgery... If someone says they have to have surgery, we feel a pang of sypathy...oh...sorry to hear that... why do we not associate surgery with hope? Organ transplants....miraculous...surgery that can 'correct' what society deems as disfigurements... surgeries to remove things that shouldn't be in our bodies like tumors or things that have betrayed our bodies, like one's appendix. Surgery often relieves many conditions...extends lives... so why fear it? Because it is a risk I suppose...

Many people have scars that are from surgeries that saved their lives... so are those scars a badge of honor of some kind? Perhaps.... One of my friends told me last night that I was brave to go through all this.... I'm not brave. I see bravery as a choice...One is brave when one makes the choice to do something brave...not by going through something in which one had no choice. For now, this is the hand I have been dealt...I am going through it...but I am not brave.

Then again... I think people who face cancer do so with a certain kind of courage. And cancer is not a choice. Cancer scars people...sometimes physically...always mentally...and the scarring extends to family members... One of my grandmothers has had and survived cancer three times now... and my mom has survived it once... it has scarred us all...even though those cancer stories have had happy endings... in that the cancer is no longer present... others of course, have different endings...deeper scars...


Scars...permanent... so what will my new scar tell? I don't think I know that yet...