At long last I have figured out what it takes to get people to view my blog...
Gratuitous shots of Simone.
I've been lying in bed with the flu since yesterday. It's given me a lot of time to think. I awoke from a four hour nap thinking of Sean Swarner's talk. We were telling funny stories on ourselves. I told the room about when I awakend after the surgery. The recovery nurse immediately shoved a mirror in my face. Groggy and still drugged, I looked at the six inch scar encircling my neck and scoffed, "Great. All I need now is some green skin dye and a couple of neck bolts." Hud snickered and chimed in, "There's my girl!" The nurse was horrified. Panicked, she tried to issue reassuring comments that the doctor did a wonderful job. I just looked at her and said, "Of course he did. I know I'm going to be fine."
The real question is, Why in the heck do they do that? You know, shove a mirror in your face to expose the damage?
It wasn't the first time that had happened to me. When I was twenty, I was a passenger in a car that went over a guard rail on an off ramp and onto the highway below. My face and shoulder went through the windshield. The right side of my face was torn to shreds. The doctor patiently reattached my ear and stitched together the quarter size hole in my cheek you could see my teeth through.
In the morning, the first nurse came in and asked me how much morphine I needed. She couldn't believe that I didn't have a massive headache. I felt sore, but I was fine, really. Spare me the addictive medications. Thanks for thinking of me though. The next nurse entered the room and shoved a giant mirror in my face. I snatched down. She tried to put it back up. "Stop!" I cried, "What are you doing?" "Showing you the surgery to your face," she replied, puzzled and raised the mirror again. "Cut it out, will you?" Again I smacked it away. "Don't you want to see it?" I looked at her as if she had three heads. "I figured out this wasn't my look when my father passed out when he saw me..." She did the same thing every day for a week until my discharge.
I asked one of the operating room nurses at the talk about the mirror. She replied that most people want to see. I said, "Nope! Not the least bit curious. I figure it's mine whether I like it or not. I'll have plenty of time to make peace with it when it looks better."
The doctor had done a great job on my face. Only a scar on my cheek remained into my thirties. It about the circumfrence of my thumb and half the depth. Laser surgery has removed any lasting effects of it.
I fingered the six inch scar on my neck this morning as I looked in the mirror.
And I am at peace with it.
