Recently I wrote, "I'll Show You My Scar if You'll Show Me Yours." And below are some scar stories you showed me. Enjoy!
Wow! What a powerful story. Mine is a boring ol c section scar :) -- Sally Deskins
The first scar on my six-year old body was on my right knee. A tornado was coming and the family had safely made it to the outdoor cellar, but my mother kept me with her until the last, and we saw the funnel cloud. As we were running through the storm, I tripped on a shovel blade and opened a gash on my knee (or cut it). She must have wrapped it but I don't remember anything about it except that I had a rather wide scar, which has since disappeared into my now old knee. We stayed in the earthen cellar all night--or so it seemed. Luckily, my older sister Margie had brought her wind-up record player to the cellar along with a record that she had just bought that day and she played all night. It was "Sunrise Serenade" by Frankie Carle. -- Sharon Ahrens
I fell off a scaffold in '03, broke my right heel and left wrist. The details are sketchy due to trauma, shock, pain and heavy sedation. I'm sure it was sufficiently dramatic but maybe more so for the medical responders, witnesses, et al, than to me. I was just the catalyst….-- Bill Reece
Also a tumor, but it was supposed to grow behind the knee cap. But this poor thing did not know any better. I was 5 years old, it was summer, and the tumor was growing huge on the side of my knee. It was 1955 and about 19.55 in the household budget. Nobody worried about it that much, until it got to the point that I could not walk and had to be carried. Since we come from that earlier time, we know the doctors were not overly skilled in the beautification of the job, but just get it out and stitch it up. To this day I hardly ever wear shorts outside. But I am trying to get braver in my old age.--Marsha Stribley
Like the lady in "Talking With," I've been marked by life, but have no interesting scars.--Sue/Ruth Firestone
I carry two crosses on my body: one on the inside of my left elbow, one on the inside of my right ankle. Not tattoos. Maybe because of the enforced markings, I choose not to add others. The crosses are both about an inch long. Midway between the two, on the left side of my waist, there's a scar about an inch long, as though someone stuck a knife in my side, then stitched up the cut from the inside, causing that spot to indent about a half inch into my body, regardless of my weight.
These are the places where three feeding tubes provided me nourishment for several days after my open heart surgery when I was five years old. I can still see the tubes ascending from my body, ending in what appeared to me to be huge plastic bags filled with fluid.
The scar from the surgery itself runs from directly under the middle of my left breast around to my back, where it rises up to meet the place where a wing would go, if I had one. It's a deep, puckered, ugly scar. I never wore a bikini, a halter top, or a backless dress in my entire life.
I remember the tests and prep work I had to endure prior to the surgery. One test was performed twice, at two separate trips to the hospital. They laid me out on a flat metal table and attached wires to my veins. I was told to lie completely still as the test was performed. That took all of my reserves of Nordic stoicism because it felt as though electricity coursed through my veins. Of course, I didn't comprehend the concept at that time. To me, it felt like thin worms were squirming through my arms and legs. Uncomfortable doesn't begin to describe it. I thought the wires had embedded into my skin and ran through my veins. Of course, no one explained the test process to me, leaving me to my imaginings to deal with the torture. All I could do was grit my teeth, flatten my body to the table, and wish it over soon.
I don't remember going into surgery, or in fact, even checking into the hospital.
I don't know how soon after surgery this happened, but I recall swimming up to consciousness, seeing my daddy looming over me, urging me to eat. I couldn't speak, though I could see he appeared nearly desperate to have me take a bite of something from the molded plastic segmented hospital food tray. He would hold up various items - - I remember a sliced-in-the-skin third of a banana - - and all I could do was lightly shake my head. The room seemed to me to be a yellowish white and completely empty except for a stand where the food tray sat. I'm sure that's wrong, but that's how it seemed to me at the time.
First I was in a room alone. Next I remember a couple of roommates: a girl who was maybe ten or twelve and very kind, and then, after she went home, a girl about my age who was not kind. She had a box of blocks that could interconnect, and no matter how nicely I begged, no matter that she seldom played with them, she would not let me even touch them. I asked my parents if I could have some of that kind of blocks, but though they wanted to give me anything I wished for, they couldn't find them anywhere. I remember getting a doll wearing a hospital gown with a naked bottom. I felt sorry for her but also embarrassed by her. Visitors would laugh at her, and that made me ashamed, because I wore one of those gowns too. I felt powerless and small. I never played with her.
I would still like to have a set of those blocks. I've never seen their like again in my life.
Then came the day when I could stand, then walk, with help, to the bathroom, and then, also with help, walk briefly down the hall. I bent over double, leaning left, like an old woman. I spent more than six weeks out of school. The lapse, and my new difference, contributed to years of social ineptitude. At home, ever after, my parents treated me with kid gloves, while my brother resented me.
It's been more than four decades since the surgery. All its signs - - physical, emotional, social - - have faded. I don't pay much attention to any of these scars anymore, but when I see one of my crosses - - the more noticeable scars - - that image of the feeding tubes immediately pops into my head, and then I see my daddy trying to persuade me to eat something.
Then I think about how that surgery saved my life, and I know they're a small price to pay.--Carla Barber
from: a JoLt of CoFFeY
An Intermittent Newsletter
by Marilyn June Coffey
"BitterSweet Rebel"
For earlier blogs, go to http://marilynjcoffey.blogspot.com/
some BitterSweet books
written by Marilyn June Coffey
MAIL-ORDER KID: An Orphan Train Rider's Story www.mail-orderkid.net
MARCELLA: A NOVEL To be reprinted Fall 2012.
GREAT PLAINS PATCHWORK: A Memoir
MARCELLA and GREAT PLAINS PATCHWORK are out of print
but can sometimes be bought from Amazon or other on-line book dealers.
A CRETAN CYCLE: Fragments unearthed from Knossos is a rare book.
To buy it, search eBay or other on-line book dealers.
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