Scars…

I have a lot of scars.

I have one on my thigh from when I was about 13 and a buddy and I were goofing around in the alley behind my house. He had a knife and we were pretend fighting. Until we got tangled up and I landed on his knife. Took a big chunk out of my thigh. To this day my mom feels bad about that one because we didn’t have insurance so she just taped it up. (Imagine how scary that must have been to have 5 kids and no insurance)

I have one on each shin. One was from skiing where I fell and the right ski sliced across my left shin. Lots of stitches at Ski Patrol. The other was from a time in Guatemala where I went to jump up on a window sill and my foot slipped and my shin caught the ledge. Ended up in a Guatemalan hospital to get more stitches.

I also have two on my right shoulder. I grabbed a basketball and a much larger guy grabbed the same basketball. I yanked. He yanked. My shoulder was ripped to shreds. I was taken to the ER and they gave me a shot of morphine. I apparently am very sensitive to morphine so I straight lined. They brought me back quickly but then they wouldn’t give me any pain meds while they tried to put my shoulder back in place. Sheesh. I had surgery a week later. Two big scars.

I also have two on my left knee. One on my knee cap and another along the side. Two ACL surgeries.

There are also three little scars on my right forearm. Those came from my sister pushing me through a window. When I tell that story I always get the “why would she do that?” look. As if it had to be my fault as the little brother. Then I tell them it was because I called her an elephant and sure enough, they quickly side with my sister! She pushed me through a window!

I then have one around my belly button. That one sucked. 🙂 I had a pacemaker inserted in March of 1990 and a few months later it “fell” into my colon. I needed emergency surgery.

Then there are the 4 on my chest. 4 surgeries of various types on my heart. Three related to pacemaker issues and one open heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic. When I had the surgery at the Mayo it was pretty stressful. A decent chance I wouldn’t wake up. I remember the last thing I saw before I went under was a nurse in a Texas A&M skull cap. I groaned out loud. The nurses asked me why and I told them that was not the last thing I wanted to see before I died. 🙂

Scars….scars always involve pain.

There are other scars. Not visible.