Scarred for life

I’ve always liked a scar here and there. It adds character. The Agent has a really neat square one on his thigh. See, what happened was that when he was a kid, he was riding a bicycle and got his big toe caught in the bicycle chain. He had to get a skin graft to save the toe, and the doctors pulled the skin from his thigh, creating the square scar. Neat scar, kind of a scary toe though.

I have two scars.

When I was 21, I noticed I had an unsightly blemish over my left eye. I did what any college coed would do-- I picked at it. Then I applied some cover up, and went on my merry way. The next day, I woke up with spots all over my face, chest and back. YIKES!!! I pulled on a sweatshirt and a baseball cap and rushed over to the university medical clinic. I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something. Nope. I had the chicken pox. I spent the next two weeks in agony, but at the end of it all, I only had one scar.




I stopped plucking my eyebrows after that, so the scar would be covered. It’s only in the last year that I realized that the scar was less noticeable than the Sasquatch eyebrows I was sporting.

I obtained my second noticeable scar in late June of 2005. I was on vacation that week, The Agent was at work. I was sick. I had no energy. I was sick to my stomach all the time. I had been trying to get pregnant, and I was hoping that this was reason behind my ailments. If not, I needed some serious medical attention.

The Agent was due to come home in about 30 minutes, so I peeled myself off the couch and tried to do a load of dishes before he arrived. I was scrubbing silverware, lost in thought. Could I be pregnant? Is it too early to take a test? Should I call The Agent? As I was thinking, the knife I was holding slipped out of my left hand and into my right thumb. Blood gushed.

I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my hand before I sank to the floor. The pain really wasn’t that bad, but I was instantly light headed. I crawled across the kitchen to the phone. My towel was already drenched as I called The Agent.

“I don’t want you to freak out,” I told The Agent. “I’m ok. But I cut my hand and it’s bleeding pretty bad and I need you to come look at it.” The Agent said he would be right home.

The Agent chastised me later for not adequately describing how serious this situation was. He was not prepared for the blood bath he walked into. I hadn’t cleaned up the kitchen, so there was still blood all over the sink and the blood soaked towel on the counter. And I was nowhere to be seen.

“Babe?” The Agent called out. “Lovely, where are you?”

I was in the bathroom, laying on the bathroom floor. I had gone in there to get a thicker towel, and it was too difficult to move again.

The Agent took off the towel. He didn’t need to study my thumb long before he said, “Let’s get your shoes on. We need to go to the hospital.”

Ugh. I felt so sick. “I just want to lay down. Can’t you just bandage it?”

“Babe, I’m not a doctor. You about cut your thumb off. I think you need stitches.”

The Agent went to the garage to find our first aid kit in with the camping supplies, and I struggled to put on a pair of flip flops so we could go. He calmly came back in with the first aid kit, wrapped my hand , and we were on our way.

(I didn't realize until the next day The Agent tore the garage up looking for the first aid kit. He was so sweet-- he put on a brave calm face for me, but was in a panic on the inside.)



3 hours and 7 stitches later, we were back home, with a pregnancy test. Positive.

This is why we were going to name Bug Cutter if she had been a boy.