Personal Mayhem Diaries

Scars are journals of some of the bad things that happen in our lives. They chronicle accidents and surgeries and physical pain in life. Here's the way my scar diary might describe my life.

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When my owner was just over a year old, she was jumping on the bed, fell off, and landed on her rocking goat (don't ask -- her parents were hippies). The goat apparently had a loose nail that went through her lower lip and ripped a nice lip separation. Besides being hippies, her parents were apparently also too young and uninformed to get me stitched up. Now I am ragged-looking, but I get paler with time.

In 3rd grade, Heather was in a bicycle accident. She was racing a friend back to her house, going opposite sides of the block toward the far corner. She thought she'd be smart (like any good 8-year-old), and took a shortcut through the alley. The very gravelly alley. The knee took a few bits of gravel for a snack, and now I'm here, looking a bit like a mouth to tell the tale.

If you look at her left foot (not the movie), you'll see where she had another bike accident the next year, when I was born. She was following the same friend from the previous story when the friend stopped suddenly. Heather couldn't stop in time, and the pedal cut a nice gash in the top of her foot. She was wearing jellies at the time, so the top of the foot was exposed. I was certain I needed stitches, but again, her parents wouldn't help me. I tell them now that I would be smaller if they would have cared about medical attention for me.

I am found on the outside of Heather's right ankle. She was learning to shave. And she didn't do so well. I'm actually darker than the neighboring skin. I was the first scar to do that.

On the insides of both elbows, we are not trackmarks from Heather's heroin addiction. Regardless of any bad jokes she might try to tell, don't believe her. Instead, we are from half a dozen whole blood donations and probably 20 plasma sales. She apparently had to start selling plasma because she was in college, and was broke. The right arm was significantly juicier, so our colony is larger there.

On her left hip you'll find me, a more recent member of the family. At least I get to say that I'm the only visible scar that was created by the medical community. And there were still no stitches.

Heather is still quite the klutz. While cooking dinner at Thanksgiving, the large turkey and the small oven converged to create me on her left forearm. There were three burns during the cooking of that turkey, but I was the only one good enough to cause a scar. And, I have the distinction of being the latest scar so far.