Scars

What do you see first when you look in the mirror?

I see my scars.

Some of them are from silly accidents. A squiggle on my forehead from catapulting a rock into my face (I did it wrong, but I blame my older brother). A splotch on my elbow from scraping up against the side of a whirl pool. A smattering of white lines on one knee from falling on a gravel path. Stories I lived, memories I carry.

And then there’s the scars I have out of necessity. You see, I have a history and ongoing risk of skin cancer. My dermatologist and I catch up twice a year while he maps out my moles, analyzing each one to see if any new precancerous culprits have emerged. Twice a year I hold my breath and wait to hear how many new scars I’ll get this time because of the spots that need to be removed. Maybe there’s none and all the moles are playing nice. Or maybe there’s two or three or four or... Each appointment comes and goes and more often than not, I leave with a few less moles and a few more raw scars to-be than before.

My legs, my arms, my face have accumulated these marks left by scalpels carving out what needs to go, doing what needs to be done; with my permission but not my blessing.

The latest cancer spot is the second one I’ve had to have removed from my face. A few years back I said goodbye to a cancerous mole above my left eyebrow (ie - a plastic surgeon cut out and sewed up a 4x2 cm diamond). I left the hospital with my eyebrow raised in a quizzical look because of the way the skin was stitched up, my face frozen and misshapen for the few months it took for the skin to stretch and settle back into an imbalanced but much more normal place. My inch-long scar eventually turned pale, bumpy but not so obvious.

This most recent spot was on the side of my nose. Tiny to the naked eye, my (incredible) doctor analyzed it and carefully cut away layer after layer of the cancerous tissue, going deeper and wider until this seemingly small mark grew beyond the size I’d thought it would be. What seemed to be millimetres big turned out to leave a hole about the diameter of a penny and depth of a small marble.

With the cancer removed, then came the daunting question — how do we close it up? How will my face be shifted and scarred yet again?

Turns out the best move was something called a bi-lobe procedure. Ultimately, what that meant for me was a large path of 80 stitches starting between my eyebrows and winding their way down my nose. My newest impending scar the biggest one yet.

I’m one day post procedure and my emotions feel as raw as my nose. There’s a black eye forming around my swollen eyes, puffy from the physical shock of the procedure and my crying.

I worry I’m being overly dramatic with my tears. It’s just a scar. It was necessary. At least it wasn’t bigger. Thank god I had such a capable and wonderful doctor. Other people are going through worse situations.

And also.

It’s my face. It’s a 2-3 inch scar down the center of it. My scars tend to take a long time to heal. It’s a conversation that I’ll be having with every single person I see, whether it’s out loud or sitting in their questioning eyes.

I know that time will heal and the scar will fade. I know my face won’t ever be quite the same.

And that sucks. And it is what it is. And thank god for modern medicine. And it makes me cry.

And that’s life, isn’t it? Each of us marred and scarred in some way, visible or not; big or little; calloused and still heavy. We move through our days sensitive to these markings, sometimes with ease, sometimes barely.

But we do it. We make it. One step, one day at a time if need be.

I usually write with a tidy ending in mind, some thought that’s been percolating. Today I’ve got nothing except my own sadness and embarrassment and deep knowing that it’ll be okay. But for today, it sucks, and that’s okay too.