They don't tell you before they open you up and stitch you back together that the scar tissue from the procedure may cause you significant amount of pain later in life. They should but they barely prepare you for the visual scar you will have after a surgery. I found that out when I was 9 years old.
Yes, no one warned me - not once in all of the surgeries that I have had in my life, which are far too many, that deep inside where those cuts opening me up, would one day cause a deep twisting ache that comes out of nowhere, sometimes causing me to double over in pain.
I have scars all over my body. My first one was from an exploratory surgery when I was that 9 year old girl, a mangled slice that goes across my lower abdomen from far right side to just past and under my navel. I say mangled because I ended up having severe sepsis in the hospital and vomiting ripped the stitches. I ended up having to have an NG tube forced down my nostril and spent days with a crash cart by my bed, in case my body gave out. I've hated that scar since the day I woke up with enough clarity and seen welted out on my skin.
Then there is the scar from having my spleen removed when I was 17 years old. My spleen was extremely enlarged, which means my scar is very long. It slices down the center of me from just under my breast bone down past and through my navel, creating a L on my abdomen. Along it are smaller slashes for all the tubes they had inserted to drain fluids while I healed in ICU - that didn't prevent an incisional infection from popping up, delaying my release from the hospital
That scar was reopened a few later because evidently that infection I had prevented my incision from healing properly. I had to be reopened and wire and mesh was inserted.
My gall bladder and a parotid gland tumor added to the scars visual on my body. At various points in my life, all of them I have despised. They have been a constant reminder of pain and loss, the loss of my youth to illness.
The pain of scar tissue is the reminder.
Then there are the scars no one sees and I have worked a lifetime on attempting to heal - those scars are the ones I suffered repeatedly as a victim of child sexual assault - as a child needing a nurturing mother who was guarded by her own wall of pain - as a daughter watching my father drown his pain in alcohol; a very caring and deeply emotional man who couldn't handle the pain he never found words to express was in him. There are also the scars from loving a man who carried so much within that like my father he attempted to drown his own pain - that scar tissue - from allowing him to feel and to the point I almost lost my life to his inner demons being released during drunken stupors.
My body and my soul has experienced a lot of pain, at times I thought it was more pain than I could handle feeling, especially when the scar tissue rears its ugly ways, reminding me of the path I have walked.
No one warns a person that years after the healing, scar tissue will remind you of where you have been. Take heed, I am telling you now.
It will hurt. You will remember every moment of the surgeries you may have had and every tear you tried to silence when those invisible scars were made by others. It will feel ugly. You may get pissed off - angry - irritable.
Allow yourself to feel whatever those scars are telling you. Try not to get lost in the pain to the point you cannot appreciate what you have survived. That pain is trying to tell you to pay attention - to focus on yourself for a while and remember that you are stronger than you believe, you've survived so much - more than anyone looking at you will ever know. Take comfort in the fact you're alive - you made it and tomorrow there can be better days.
Recently, all of my scar tissue has been acting up - the physical and the emotional. Needless to say it has left me winded on more days than I would like to admit - however - I still survive and I am paying attention to it all and remember the lessons I learned along the way.
I'm still growing - which also means I am not ready to give up. I refuse to build walls of isolation, keeping me a prisoner in my own pain, as we know, walls don't work. All they do is keep secrets stashed away and healing love from ever entering.
My suggestion to you if you experience anything near to what I am trying to convey here is that you pull out a pen, grab a notebook and write yourself a love letter by letting that pain out - you deserve the effort, after all you're a survivor.
Yes, no one warned me - not once in all of the surgeries that I have had in my life, which are far too many, that deep inside where those cuts opening me up, would one day cause a deep twisting ache that comes out of nowhere, sometimes causing me to double over in pain.
I have scars all over my body. My first one was from an exploratory surgery when I was that 9 year old girl, a mangled slice that goes across my lower abdomen from far right side to just past and under my navel. I say mangled because I ended up having severe sepsis in the hospital and vomiting ripped the stitches. I ended up having to have an NG tube forced down my nostril and spent days with a crash cart by my bed, in case my body gave out. I've hated that scar since the day I woke up with enough clarity and seen welted out on my skin.
Then there is the scar from having my spleen removed when I was 17 years old. My spleen was extremely enlarged, which means my scar is very long. It slices down the center of me from just under my breast bone down past and through my navel, creating a L on my abdomen. Along it are smaller slashes for all the tubes they had inserted to drain fluids while I healed in ICU - that didn't prevent an incisional infection from popping up, delaying my release from the hospital
 |
| splenectomy scar |
That scar was reopened a few later because evidently that infection I had prevented my incision from healing properly. I had to be reopened and wire and mesh was inserted.
My gall bladder and a parotid gland tumor added to the scars visual on my body. At various points in my life, all of them I have despised. They have been a constant reminder of pain and loss, the loss of my youth to illness.
The pain of scar tissue is the reminder.
Then there are the scars no one sees and I have worked a lifetime on attempting to heal - those scars are the ones I suffered repeatedly as a victim of child sexual assault - as a child needing a nurturing mother who was guarded by her own wall of pain - as a daughter watching my father drown his pain in alcohol; a very caring and deeply emotional man who couldn't handle the pain he never found words to express was in him. There are also the scars from loving a man who carried so much within that like my father he attempted to drown his own pain - that scar tissue - from allowing him to feel and to the point I almost lost my life to his inner demons being released during drunken stupors.
My body and my soul has experienced a lot of pain, at times I thought it was more pain than I could handle feeling, especially when the scar tissue rears its ugly ways, reminding me of the path I have walked.
No one warns a person that years after the healing, scar tissue will remind you of where you have been. Take heed, I am telling you now.
It will hurt. You will remember every moment of the surgeries you may have had and every tear you tried to silence when those invisible scars were made by others. It will feel ugly. You may get pissed off - angry - irritable.
Allow yourself to feel whatever those scars are telling you. Try not to get lost in the pain to the point you cannot appreciate what you have survived. That pain is trying to tell you to pay attention - to focus on yourself for a while and remember that you are stronger than you believe, you've survived so much - more than anyone looking at you will ever know. Take comfort in the fact you're alive - you made it and tomorrow there can be better days.
Recently, all of my scar tissue has been acting up - the physical and the emotional. Needless to say it has left me winded on more days than I would like to admit - however - I still survive and I am paying attention to it all and remember the lessons I learned along the way.
I'm still growing - which also means I am not ready to give up. I refuse to build walls of isolation, keeping me a prisoner in my own pain, as we know, walls don't work. All they do is keep secrets stashed away and healing love from ever entering.
My suggestion to you if you experience anything near to what I am trying to convey here is that you pull out a pen, grab a notebook and write yourself a love letter by letting that pain out - you deserve the effort, after all you're a survivor.
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