Scarred for Life

Kelly

My New Belly Button

I counted my scars from my oh-so-many varied and sundry surgeries, and I think I hit sixteen

but could have missed a few. Which one had a story to tell or gave me pause? I would have to

say it was my new belly button.

This scar is from the big mack daddy of my surgeries and the first surgery to boot. In the year

2000 at 41 years old, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I’d been diligent, because my

younger sister had an aggressive form treated when she was thirty-six years old, and I knew

that if I followed, I would opt for double mastectomies. She wasn’t given the option of doubles

and to this day regrets it. Because she only had one side removed, she was always waiting for

the other shoe to drop on the second one. I knew I wouldn’t want to do that in my later years.

Wanting to be really sure that I was being smart and not reactive, we visited a few oncologists

and plastic surgeons, and they agreed that with the family history it was a good course.

Holy moly. I was in surgery around eight hours while they removed my two functional, and quite

moderately sized, breasts. Then they opened me up with an incision from hip to hip below the

bikini line (dudes) (kidding), took a strip of my rectus abdominus muscles (the long vertical

muscles on either side of the midline) with the overlying fat, nerves and blood vessels. They

totally disconnected these two collections of my belly and transplanted them onto my chest

wall. Tada! Two new boobs! Microscopically they reconnected the blood vessels and nerves

(not sure that’s a real thing), and my belly roll became the new moderately sized breast

replicas. Because there was cancer in the air, the nipples went, too. Boy do I miss those. The

end result was newly perky tatas and a very flat belly. The pain was minimal up top, because a

lot of nerves were severed, but good lord, the stomach part was like a truck hit me. Note to

self: perhaps consider silicone and ignore auto-immune issues in the next life.

Quick with the bad news then on to the belly button. After my surgery, the pathology report

was slow to show up, because it turns out, I did not have breast cancer. The original pathology

report on my core biopsies was wrong. Everything was benign. The delay was due to the

hospital requesting the core biopsy samples to see what they were looking for post-boob-

mortem, and all samples were benign. Oopsy doodle.

As time moved past the acute and painful repercussions of trauma, and the scars began to

heal, I was able to look at the quite incredible, amazing and perfect tracks of my

reconstruction. Everyone that has had the opportunity to see these new boobs is really

impressed with the overall effect - me, too! Tom, too! And I’m always having to qualify the flat

stomach. “Well, it’s not really flat, it just moved north.” The belly line is smooth and tucked

away, the upper lines are symmetrical and done to minimize tissue pucker and are also

remarkable. But the most awe inspiring trick to me was the recreation of my belly button.

Apparently when the tummy tuck was performed, a wedge of belly skin was removed after the

trans-flaps (new boobs) were transferred so as to make a smooth and youthful appearance.

When they pull the remaining belly skin down, they have to cut around the belly button, pull

down the skin and then cut a new hole for the umbilicus to show. Cute. Around the edges of

my new belly button are almost uncountable tiny stitches revealing the level of detail it takes to

do this very specific and weird thing, leaving me with a belly button that appears untouched by

the ravaging.

The detail of this little hole showed me what care was taken to try to make me whole - how

much effort was made for me to feel normal and look normal and move on with my life. It still

leaves me awed to consider the talent and skill and dedication that professionals spend to let

us carry on. It backs up my adage that anything you do should be done well and to the best of

your abilities (like our elders have taught us), because contrary to big picture enthusiasts, those

tiny little details and stitches are gifts and art and signals of human kindness. You gotta see it. It's adorable.

Kelly  7.8.20

Pam

👉 Scar is above eyebrow.

The Ballad of a Scar

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Robin

BECAUSE IT WAS MY BONES, YOU CAN’T SEE THE SCARS

I think you all have heard my story of the broken bones, but I will tell it again. In 1979 or 1980, I separated from my first husband, Bill. I met Bill my senior year of college and we got married in December after we graduated, 1974. So, I had had a loving family and then a loving husband, initially. I was working as a legal assistant and had a great boss. I was going to GA State at night to get my MBA. I had stayed busy and goal oriented. But, then, I discovered that Bill had cheated on me and wasn’t going to change, so I left him, the neat cottage we had, the dogs I so much loved.

I had never lived on my own. I started to feel such loneliness and I remember one night looking into the night sky with all those stars and feeling small, insignificant, lost. I know now I was experiencing situational depression. I could be fine, but then a wave of darkness would overtake me and I never knew when it would hit.

I got my own apartment but on the day I moved in, I went to visit Bill’s parents at their farm in Royston.
I went for a ride on Honey Boy, a big, fat, horse but pretty tame. Bill’s step-brother Jose who was maybe 10 rode with me on his pony. When Honey Boy sensed we were heading back to the barn, he took off at a flat out gallop, which could have been fine. We had galloped together a lot before. But he stumbled.
I remember starting to go down.

Honey Boy and I both got knocked out, but I woke up first lying on my back. Honey Boy was lying on his side, his legs on either side of my body. I can’t remember if any part of him was on top of me. I think my initial memory is that he was lying across me, but I don’t know how I would have gotten out from under him he was so heavy. I tried to get up but nothing felt connected about my lower body. I pulled myself away from him with my arms. He woke up and ran off, thankfully. Jose came along and I told him to go call an ambulance.

He rode to the farmhouse and got my in laws Tom and Eolyne. They came to the field where I was, having called an ambulance. Fortunately, an ambulance was basically at the end of their driveway returning to Royston from Athens. They asked if I had feeling. I did but I had tingling too. They rushed me to the Royston Hospital to stabilize me because tingling means I could be about to be paralyzed. The tingling stopped and I could still feel my legs.

The Royston doctors asked if I would like to be transported to Athens or Atlanta. I picked Atlanta and we had a harrowing, fast speed ambulance ride in the rain to the West Paces Ferry Hospital (no longer there.) My knee doctor worked at that hospital which is why I picked it.

That night, Dr. Apple was the doctor on call. I had crushed my pelvis on the right side and had cracked the sacrum or sacroiliac bone or something like that. Instead of putting me in a body cast which was standard, he ran a pin through my lower thigh, lay me in a bed tilted head-down slightly and hung a sandbag off the pin and over the edge of the bed. I stayed like that for 5 weeks. I have a picture of that somewhere which I will show when I can find it.

Remember, I said I was depressed before this happened? Well, this might have been the best thing that could have happened to me, to save me from that. One reason was because I was on percoset for a few days until I could tolerate the pain. But that was a temporary fix. The more long-lasting healing happened from the following realizations.

1. I had friends. So many friends. They visited me every day at the hospital for 5 weeks. They came from work. They came from school. They came from Bill’s band. They came from just knowing them from living in Atlanta. They brought food. They brought music. They brought love and caring. And I realized, I was not alone. Big, important realization. And by the way, I made new friends. The nurses, the technicians, the people who cleaned my room, the people who cleaned me and fed me. All colors, all walks of life, all kinds of happiness and sadness. All shared with me because I was there for so long.

2. If you want to know you have friends, well, you have to slow down so you all can catch up. Since I was there for 5 weeks, they knew where to find me and they did.

3. The day I got out of the hospital, my ex-sister in law who picked me up had to stop to pick something up. I waited in the car (still could not use my right side, crutches for another 6 weeks). What I saw was what I had done before the accident. People darting in and out of the stores, not taking time to look at each other, not taking time to smile. Just darting. So that goes back to #2 here, which is slow down. See people. All people. Smile. Smell roses. There is so much to life that is missed by hurrying through it.

4. The last thing I learned was that our bodies are amazing temples. They heal. It is a miracle really how they heal. Part of my pre-accident life included some drinking and smoking and partying so I didn’t feel so lonely. Well, that wasn’t the answer, see above, and my body was and is a temple to be treated as such. So, when I could finally walk, I swam and then I ran. And I ran, ran, ran, ran. And ate well. And didn’t take my body and health for granted.

I keep those lessons. And I take time for friends. This group is like that. It is friends caring for one another. Taking joy. Sharing stories. Sharing life’s lessons. Taking time.