Topic: Scars
Hmm, I'm not sure I want to write about scars. I'd rather write about chicken nuggets for breakfast. Cool, huh?
Scars: I don't have many scars. No broken bones, very few hospital stays. (Sorry, I keep getting distracted by breakfast. How is the hashbrown casserole still warm when Matt had to drive from Fitzgerald?)
My brother went to the emergency room three times in one day as a kid: 1) at a baseball game his head tried to catch a line drive; 2) at a car dealership a monkey bit him (he should have known better than to stick a finger into the cage); 3) I can't remember what prompted the third visit to the ER, but let's assume it was his fault as well. Where were the people who should have been investigating my parents by that point?
Wes has lots of scars as well: 1) he sliced his finger off when cutting meat at a grocery store in high school; 2) he nearly lost the tip of his finger when his older brother slammed the car door on it; 3) his hand is scarred from the little pinky incident written about in last year's anthology; 4) his leg shows scrape marks from the same little pinky incident. I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can remember. (I'm sure he'll remind me of others when he reads this post.)
My scars--I can only think of one: a small surgical scar from a breast biopsy several years ago. When I had my first mammogram, the doctors saw a small mass, probably nothing, but we had nothing to compare it to. This was to be my baseline mammogram, the one to use for measuring future problems. We could check it out, or we could wait and re-check it out. Waiting annoys me. We scheduled a biopsy, and I planned to miss class.
I arrived at the hospital at an ungodly hour and started the process. I worried a little because Wes reacts so badly to anesthesia, so I wondered how it would affect me. As always, I'm completely different from Wes. I remember the doctor talking to me, and then I woke up in the recovery room because of some guy nearby moaning. Glad to be me and not the moaner, I looked away, wanting someone to take me back to my room. Wes met me there. He looked a bit green. The whole experience was worse for him than for me. I sat there until the nurses told me I could leave. They called in a pain prescription and told me I could eat by the time I got home.
We picked up the pain medicine at a pharmacy in Albany so that I'd have it for the drive home, and then I wanted to go eat. Wes couldn't believe it. When he has had even minor surgery, he is sick for two days from the anesthesia. I just knew that I hadn't eaten since ten o'clock the night before, and it was now afternoon. Hello? Food time.
I decided the nurses probably thought I lived in Albany, so it was fine to eat now. We lunched at Johnny Carino's--at least I think that's the name of it. Yum. So far, absolutely no side effects.
It took a while for the results to come in, but they were negative. I returned to have the stitches removed, and now I have a little scar--just a little puckering to remind me of the scare.
Thus, I have very few scars.
I had a brush with death, but it left few external signs but lots of internal scarring.
When I went to India, I became extremely sick. In fact, when I returned home, the doctor said I was about twenty-four hours from death because internally my tissue was swelling. Soon, I wouldn't have been able to breathe from my throat closing up. It sounds far more dramatic than it actually felt. For a while I was a medical oddity. The doctor took pictures of me--I'm probably in some medical journal as Patient Jane Doe, the freak. I looked like I had leprosy. I'm surprised airlines let me board.
Of course, as a good teacher, I used my freakishness in my favor, threatening to touch students if they continued to misbehave.
I'm forgetting about some of the pain. If I force myself, I can remember that parts of the disease and recovery turned me into a sniveling baby, but I think forgetting is healthy sometimes. I know that I scared friends and family, and I tried not to let them see how much it hurt, but I think forgetting the pain is essential to moving on. I will never forget the experience, but the worse parts have faded a bit.
Um, I'm not sure why I suggested this topic. It's turned depressing for me.
Scars: I don't have many scars. No broken bones, very few hospital stays. (Sorry, I keep getting distracted by breakfast. How is the hashbrown casserole still warm when Matt had to drive from Fitzgerald?)
My brother went to the emergency room three times in one day as a kid: 1) at a baseball game his head tried to catch a line drive; 2) at a car dealership a monkey bit him (he should have known better than to stick a finger into the cage); 3) I can't remember what prompted the third visit to the ER, but let's assume it was his fault as well. Where were the people who should have been investigating my parents by that point?
Wes has lots of scars as well: 1) he sliced his finger off when cutting meat at a grocery store in high school; 2) he nearly lost the tip of his finger when his older brother slammed the car door on it; 3) his hand is scarred from the little pinky incident written about in last year's anthology; 4) his leg shows scrape marks from the same little pinky incident. I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can remember. (I'm sure he'll remind me of others when he reads this post.)
My scars--I can only think of one: a small surgical scar from a breast biopsy several years ago. When I had my first mammogram, the doctors saw a small mass, probably nothing, but we had nothing to compare it to. This was to be my baseline mammogram, the one to use for measuring future problems. We could check it out, or we could wait and re-check it out. Waiting annoys me. We scheduled a biopsy, and I planned to miss class.
I arrived at the hospital at an ungodly hour and started the process. I worried a little because Wes reacts so badly to anesthesia, so I wondered how it would affect me. As always, I'm completely different from Wes. I remember the doctor talking to me, and then I woke up in the recovery room because of some guy nearby moaning. Glad to be me and not the moaner, I looked away, wanting someone to take me back to my room. Wes met me there. He looked a bit green. The whole experience was worse for him than for me. I sat there until the nurses told me I could leave. They called in a pain prescription and told me I could eat by the time I got home.
We picked up the pain medicine at a pharmacy in Albany so that I'd have it for the drive home, and then I wanted to go eat. Wes couldn't believe it. When he has had even minor surgery, he is sick for two days from the anesthesia. I just knew that I hadn't eaten since ten o'clock the night before, and it was now afternoon. Hello? Food time.
I decided the nurses probably thought I lived in Albany, so it was fine to eat now. We lunched at Johnny Carino's--at least I think that's the name of it. Yum. So far, absolutely no side effects.
It took a while for the results to come in, but they were negative. I returned to have the stitches removed, and now I have a little scar--just a little puckering to remind me of the scare.
Thus, I have very few scars.
I had a brush with death, but it left few external signs but lots of internal scarring.
When I went to India, I became extremely sick. In fact, when I returned home, the doctor said I was about twenty-four hours from death because internally my tissue was swelling. Soon, I wouldn't have been able to breathe from my throat closing up. It sounds far more dramatic than it actually felt. For a while I was a medical oddity. The doctor took pictures of me--I'm probably in some medical journal as Patient Jane Doe, the freak. I looked like I had leprosy. I'm surprised airlines let me board.
Of course, as a good teacher, I used my freakishness in my favor, threatening to touch students if they continued to misbehave.
I'm forgetting about some of the pain. If I force myself, I can remember that parts of the disease and recovery turned me into a sniveling baby, but I think forgetting is healthy sometimes. I know that I scared friends and family, and I tried not to let them see how much it hurt, but I think forgetting the pain is essential to moving on. I will never forget the experience, but the worse parts have faded a bit.
Um, I'm not sure why I suggested this topic. It's turned depressing for me.
posted by Donna Sewell at
8:33 AM
1 Comments:
Duh! I forgot the concussion I got caused by an ice cream fight. I should write about that later.
By
Donna Sewell, at 9:24 AM
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