Scar Tissue

I leaned down to pick up the Equal packet on the floor. It landed by my right foot. My eyes focused on the long scar on my right arch, a remnant of the foot and ankle reconstruction I had in 2012.

I would walk though childhood with foot pain. There would be trips to doctors to determine why I complained about my feet hurting. It was decided that I had flat feet, just as my father had. For some babies, the muscle, bone, and ligament changes that would lead to a stable arch never take place. The exact cause of why the arch fails to develop is not known. Environmental and genetic factors likely play a role. I would walk through my childhood with a series of orthopedic shoes that were custom made with steel arches. Of course, the shoes were not fashionable and the style choice was limited. It made me feel worse about myself to have to wear them.

It was the conventional treatment at the time to force malformed arches into a more ‘natural’ position. It never made the pain resolve, and in order to deal with it, I would resist physical activity and exercise because of the pain. In addition, because my ligaments were loose in my feet, I was prone to repeated injuries by rolling my foot outward. It would take years for the orthopedic world to learn that this was not the way to treat anyone with this condition.

The hot summers were spent all day in the sun at Blue Mountain Lions Swim Club, just a block from our home. Those orthopedic shoes would be tucked away into the dark recesses of the closet I shared with my sister Carole. It was the same closet that our Calico cat Princess chose to hide in and give birth to her litter of kittens. I can still remember Carole squealing with delight as she watched the miracle of birth unfold before her, her bright blue eyes big with wonder.

I would put on my flip flops and one piece suit, grab an old towel, and walk to the pool with Kevin and Carole on many of those days. Cindy would remain at home with mom as she cleaned and cooked, or planted Big Boy tomatoes along the back yard fence. Walking along the burning sidewalk along the pool perimeter I would see the wet footprints of other children as they came out of the pool to walk to another area to play. I always noticed the footprints, because it was clearly not the way my feet were formed. They had perfectly formed feet with semicircular arches, topped with five little round toe prints. I never heard anyone complain about their feet hurting.

I would step out of the cool waters of the pool and watch the imprint of my feet, comparing them to other children. I didn’t have the semicircular arch — instead it was flat and wide. I began to believe that they resembled elephant feet. Despite the freedom of wearing flip flops all summer, my feet would be aching from having a lack of support. By the end of summer, I would almost look forward to wearing those ugly shoes in the back of the closet, believing that they would soothe the inflammation caused by the flip flops. By the second week of school, I was always disappointed to realize that even those ‘special’ shoes failed me as well.

Decades passed. I lived through the 1970’s trying to wear Candies and Clogs and platform shoes. I thought that my sparkling white Clinic nursing shoes would offer more support as a student nurse. I remember lying in my bed in nursing school trying to go to sleep, but my aching feet said I couldn’t.

One day, I was in my early thirties, when a nurse colleague approached me in the hallway and said ‘How much longer are you going to limp like that?’

I had grown so accustomed to the pain that it became a part of my everyday life. I accepted it. I was resigned to the pain. It was shortly after that that I saw a podiatrist for the first time, and was finally treated appropriately with custom made orthotics to place in my sneakers.

My pregnancy in 1988 made it worse. I remember my son was five weeks old when I went to the podiatrist because I had so much foot pain after I delivered him. Adjustments had to be made as the pregnancy caused further wear and tear on my right foot.

I walked through my forties and onward through to my fifties. I had life changing gastric bypass at age 47 which lessened the strain on my foot. I made it to my 56th year, but the limping began again. This time the pain was unbearable, and I was working all day with such pain that I often described it as stepping on a railroad spike. I had many nights of fitful sleep because the pain was so intense.

In January 2012, I would have right foot and ankle reconstruction with a tendon transfer. The tendon that controlled movement on the bottom of my foot had become fibrotic, and useless, and I had lost function of my foot to stand on my toes. I never realized that I had lost function of my foot until I was asked to lift my left foot off the ground and attempt to stand on my toes with my right foot.

The recovery for this surgery was brutal, and it was a full six months of being out of work. I lost my job because of the prolonged recovery.

I became totally dependent on my family for a couple of months. I was in pain. I couldn’t go up the steps and I lived in my family room for nine weeks, because I was non weight bearing. I bathed in the bathroom sink in the powder room. I was depressed.

When I attempted to stop my pain medications, I went through withdrawal. It took me several days of acute anxiety and sleepless nights until the effects of physical dependence left my system. It gave me a new perspective of why people become addicted and physically dependent on opiates.

This isn’t about my trials and tribulations of having surgery.

It isn’t about becoming physically dependent on opiates.

It’s about the scars.

We all have them.

Some are visible, like the ones on my reconstructed foot. The angry red line starts on the arch, wraps around my heel and halfway to the outer aspect of my foot.

Of course, that doesn’t include the bolt that they hammered into my heel to put it back together….after they opened it up, sawed it in half, and reconstructed the malformed bone that I was born with.

Scars are a reminder that we have been opened up. Invisible scars remind us that the pain of being opened was sometimes too painful to bear.

The five little scars on my belly tell the tale of my choice to live beyond age 47 when I chose to have gastric bypass. I wanted so desperately to see my kids grow up and one day hold their babies in my arms.

The semicircular scar on my right breast reminds me how it wasn’t my time to have breast cancer — -right before my divorce was to be finalized. It was a tragic time, but I was lucky to live on and raise my son.

The jagged scar on my face is the reminder of the boy I loved at sixteen.

It’s about the snowy night that I was turning left at an intersection, and another car accelerated to make the yellow light. I woke up with my face pressed against the rear view mirror, the windshield shattered into a million little pieces, and bleeding from my right temple. My little sister lay crumpled in the passenger seat and unconscious. She would recover in bed with her broken pelvis for two months, and finished that school year with a home tutor. I would return to school with a scar on my face that had ripped my flesh into a jagged, uneven line.

It was my shame.

It was my shame of loving him and wanting to show my sister where he lived. By my choice that night, she was injured and I felt responsible.

Scars open us up.

We don’t like to share the pain we’ve held so deeply inside ourselves, hiding the pain in hidden crevasses of our soul.

Most scars fade over time. Unless I point these scars out to someone, they are hardly noticeable.

As human beings we somehow make peace with our physical scars if we work hard to accept those perceived imperfections.

Each one has a story.

Each one has a memory.

It is the scars that are not visible that bring us the most pain in this life. Pain will come and go, just like physical pain can torture us.

Invisible scars are the hardest ones to heal.

They are insidious.

They hide.

They live deep in our psyche. They wake us up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.

Their tentacles wrap around our heart, invading the chambers as our heart beats frantically trying to cling to this life.

There are plenty of reminders that can bring them to the surface.

The scent of a long forgotten lover.

Listening to a song.

Running into an old acquaintance.

We are not our scars.

We can chose to not to let them permeate our being.

Scars will fade with time.

They can integrate into our being, but not kill us.

They can become a part of us, but not rule our life.

We can chose acceptance and by doing so, make room for a better life.

We don’t have to accept the pain that comes with them.

Like most people, I had convinced myself that I had to live with the pain.

I did everything I could to ignore the pain without success. I had to literally walk through what I so desperately wanted to avoid in order to heal.

You can fix yourself.

Patch yourself back together, much like my foot.

You don’t need any experience. You don’t need a resume. You don’t need to dress in your Sunday best to accomplish this task. Wear whatever you want to wear. You don’t need an invitation.

Build yourself a better life with imaginary bolts, sutures, Crazy Glue, staples, thread, Duct tape, iron on patches, or whatever helps you hold yourself together.

You cannot wait for someone to give you the materials.

You have to fix yourself.

No one will knock on your door to give you help. You can’t grab onto that brass ring to be successful.

A big fat check won’t help in this situation.

Sex, drugs, alcohol, or compulsive anything is just a distraction and a temporary fix. They don’t work.

It’s up to you.

And it takes a lot of work.

Your scars are your survivorship.

Love every bit of them.

Sit down at your table, and put that puzzle of you back together.

There are no pre printed directions.

There is no GPS.

There is no owner’s manual.

Just wing it.

And love every bit of who you are.

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