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| The fateful day I hiked Old Rag |
Today, I've gotten to thinking about how scars hold stories.
In October 2012, I hiked Old Rag with some of my best friends from school. A misplaced step on a smooth stone with a twist of my foot proceeded by landing on my backside (so gracefully my friends thought I had simply decided to sit down in the middle of the path...) resulted in a fracture. At the time, I knew it hurt, but I figured it would go away and I ignored it.
However... the following summer at our family reunion at the beach, I could no longer ignore it as I found myself limping around the beach house in so much pain I could hardly put any weight on it. This was followed by many doctors appointments, x-rays, attempts at exercises, foot braces... finally ending with a CT Scan in January 2014 that revealed the problem: I had an accessory navicular bone in both my feet, and had fractured the left one when I fell. The solution? Surgery. I could have put it off, but there was the risk that the fractured bone could damage my tendons, resulting in a far more difficult surgery in the future. One way or another, surgery was going to happen eventually so the summer after graduation seemed like the best time to do it.
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| A gift from my dear friend Anna |
Fast forward to July 2014, I graduated college, visited family in England... and then left my summer wide open for what would be a very long recovery post-surgery.
I made the terrible mistake of Googling pictures of the Kidner Procedure (my surgery) before having it. That almost scared me off. (When I told my surgeon, his advice was: "Well, don't go on YouTube!") I saw pretty gross pictures of surgery, and some rather disturbing post-surgery scars running almost up to the knee. Not entirely sure how much damage there was to the tendon already, I didn't know if I'd wind up with scars like that. I didn't much like the idea. I was also entirely freaked out by the concept of having an IV stuck in my arm for the first time. The thought of it made me want to hyperventilate.
However, the day of surgery came... and I survived. The IV was not nearly as bad as I expected. Neither was going under. I remember feeling foggy and the nurses asking me about my major. Next thing I knew, I was awake. My first thought was: "Maybe I shouldn't go through with this..."
Too late! Surgery was done. It was the weirdest thing. Unlike sleep, where you're aware of the passage of time, I had absolutely no sense of time passing while I was under. It was like I blinked and hours had passed.
The worst part was the nausea. Lesson learned: dilaudid and me are not friends (I'll be making sure that goes on my medical record in the future). They couldn't get any food or medicine to stay down so it took a few more hours before I got to go home. Then, it was a lot of icing, elevating, and sleeping, with visits from friends and lots of flowers.
Learning to navigate crutches was a challenge for me. And trying to get across a college campus in August on crutches? Not something I want to repeat... I was on crutches for about 6 weeks total. I took a couple of tumbles on stairs and wet floors, which always meant having to go to the doctor, have the cast removed, and getting an x-ray to make sure everything was okay. This one time, we were stopping in for fast food and it had rained. The rubber tips of the crutches set down on the tiled floor... and went shooting out from under me. My foot slammed the floor so hard I heard the cast crackle. And then I just sat their on the floor trying to push past the pain before I could even accept my brother's help to get up. That experience ranks up there with most-pain-I've-ever-had-in-my-life.
It was pretty exhausting, and even though I had been worried about gaining weight, I actually lost weight because it was such a work out to even cross a room. Plus, as my surgeon said "Crutches make it really hard to go wandering into the kitchen to snack!"
Eventually, I moved from a cast to a boot, but had to stick with the crutches. Then, I moved down to one crutch and cautiously walking. It was a challenge to start walking because I hadn't used that leg in 6 weeks. My calf felt like floppy sack of fat. But as I used it more, I was soon [it didn't feel soon] able to leave the crutches altogether behind me, followed by PT, which I finished in February.
Today, I can run, jump, dance, play ultimate frisbee, go up on my toes - just about anything. My strength is still not quite where it used to be. If I overdo it, I'll know it, but the pain never lasts more than a day (usually just a couple of hours) I still do better with supportive shoes. And I want to hike Old Rag again! But I think I'll leave that off for another year as I'm not quite sure my strength is quite up to par for that yet.
Almost one year later, and all that remains is a faint scar, just on my foot - not nearly the horrific sight I feared [Again, Google Images before surgery is a terrible idea]
The doctors tell me it will continue to fade. But you know what? I don't care if it does. Because when I look at my scar, it tells a story. And it reminds me of where I've been, and where I've come. It reminds me of the hard things: times of intense pain, of being depressed because I just wanted to walk, of falling down, and having to to get back up (even though I really just wanted to lie there on the floor of the fast food restaurant and bemoan my agony). Yet it also reminds me of the friends who visited me with gifts and flowers and gave their time. It reminds me of the people who gave me rides across campus. It reminds me of the strangers who helped me carry things, opened doors, or offered sympathizing comments about the times they too had to suffer with a boot. My scar tells a story, and it's not one I want to forget.
Which then got me thinking (because I have a tendency to make metaphors out of anything)... we all have scars. Some are visible. Others aren't. Many we wish weren't there. But the scars of our past tell a story that shapes our futures. And despite all the pain, they play a significant part in making us who we are.
A scar is a sign of a wound that's being healed. Our Great Healer rose from the dead, but He still carries His scars. And though He heals our wounds, we, too, will bear the scars. He gives us the freedom, not to erase our wounds, but to redefine them as we look at our pasts through His eyes and see His healing hand at work. That's not to make light of the painful experiences of our pasts, but to look again with new eyes: Eyes that see redemption.
Rather than being ashamed of our scars - be they physical or emotional - what if we learned to embrace them?
Scars tell a story of healing and the Healer.
And, to me, that makes them beautiful.
