Scar Tissue

Big Family Little Income Scar

At no point while fantasising about the future Tracey and I might have together did I ever consider we’d one day be in a position to compare scars.

“I don’t know how you did this for all those months,” Tracey whispered to me when we were sitting in hospital waiting for me to be called forward and prepped for my gallbladder removal a couple of months ago. They were also going to fix a small hernia in my belly button which made it look like a deformed balloon knot while they were at it.

And as Tracey sat there with me I thought ‘Gee, it’s nice to be worried about’.

“You get used to it,” I assured her.

She didn’t get the chance.

“It’s sooooo boring.”

So she went shopping.

Of course, our hospitals stays were very different, like I drove down in our car and she arrived all fancy-like in a helicopter. She was rushed through to a theatre unconscious, whereas I’d waited in a chair with a telly droning on in the corner.

I like my stressless way better, although hers does have one big advantage.

We’re coming up to the anniversary of Tracey leading us all on a merry chase from hospitals at Gympie and Nambour to Brisbane. Fortunately, we’re all still here to tell the tale – and I’m looking lovingly at you when I make that point, Tracey Devereaux.

My wife, of course, has some fantastic scars she can be proud of and now, after my op, I do too. Although mine aren’t as ‘WTF happened to you!’ as hers.

Still the reaction I got last week, while changing and making a point of how wonderful my new belling button is, was a bit of a surprise. But then maybe I shouldn’t have insisted she touch it.

“Ewww,” she shuddered.

I stared at her, unsure at first I’d heard correctly.

“You’re kidding me, right?” I said.

“Sorry,” she smiled. “I didn’t mean to.” She glanced at it again.  “It’s just so…” she shook her head. A lot.

“That’s not better.”

“I mean it was involuntary,” she said accusingly, her tone somehow seeming to indicate this was my fault. I hate how she does that. “It was unintentional. You know that. I just touched it and…..” She shuddered again! “Eewwww.”

“Do you mind? I don’t ewwww when I touch yours.”

“That,” she said, lifting her shirt proudly, “is because mine is friggin’ awesome!”

That it is.

My scar is little and signifies a day surgery to stop me feeling a bit of pain: hers is the byproduct of a medical miracle requiring 10 surgeries and cutting edge medical knowhow. It’s also looking so much better now since they removed her skin graft  (you can compare it with how it looked in the post I’m Loving Myself Sick Right Now back in April).

But even if it isn’t as eye-widening as Tracey’s, I still like what mine represents – specifically, my belly button is an inny instead of an outy now.

And even if she won’t put her finger in it, I think that’s pretty darn cool.

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I love Tracey’s scar. It tells a fantastic story of medical advancement and survival and just enough luck and the right people in the right jobs and hope. Mine, not so much. It’s far less impressive. And a bit ewww. Apparently.

Raising a family on little more than laughs.

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