Finally time for a part two in my Story Behind the Scar series! For those of you who missed the first post, you can read my scar story
here. If you don't feel like going back to see why I started the series, here's the super fast version. While working on a project at my internship, I made the obvious realization that everyone has scars and every scar has a story. I got really interested in hearing how people got their scars and decided I wanted to share my own story with my blog readers. In return, I hoped that people would contact me to have their stories featured as a part of my series so I could hear more stories!
The lovely Jessie from
Young Georgia Love has agreed to share the story behind her scar on my blog today! Her story is definitely an extremely compelling one... It had me on the edge of my seat, so take a look below to check it out!
Hey, y'all! My name's Jessie and I'm coming to you over from Young Georgia Love! I absolutely loved Lindsay's scar story idea and wanted to jump right on it! So, here I am, sharing my story with all of you.
My scar story is a little, well, long. It started two days before I actually got the scar, my sophomore year in high school. You see, I got a stomach ache. Only it was different than any other stomach ache I had ever gotten before. I was nauseous and throwing up and hour before my stomach erupted into a pain that caused me to buckle over in tears. I told my dad about it, and he thought maybe I was just a little hungry. We went to breakfast, but when the food arrived on the table, it made me so sick to look at, that I became even more ill.
That night, my mom was having a party. She set me up in her bad and told me to call her if I felt any worse. About an hour in, she came and checked on me. What she saw was a fevered mess of a daughter. One second I'd feel as if my entire body was on fire, and the next I'd be shivering so violently from the cold encircling every part of me. My fever was 104 and my mother quickly called my father, telling him to meet her to take me to the hospital.
Once my dad had picked me up and I was in his car, I was at a point where walking was impossible. I could not breath and everything was spinning. I don't remember the car ride but I remember the waiting room at the hospital. Waiting room nurses came and checked on me intermittently, "looks like appendicitis; you should be taken back any second now."
An hour and a half later, I was finally being taken back and the nurses predictions were correct: appendicitis. At least, it soon would be. My appendix was failing and I would very soon be very ill once it completely failed. Very ill? I thought I already was very ill! Good news, though. A doctor at the hospital has learned a new technique they use in Europe where they treat the appendix, but leave it in. It works, the doctor said. When I do get surgery, it will be less intrusive and there will be a speedy recovery. They start me on the treatment and I get put in a bed for the night.
Fast forward, say, twelve hours. I have about thirty minutes of conscious memory here. I don't think they realized I was awake. My doctor is telling my parents "She's not responding to the treatment; if we don't perform surgery soon, she won't make it through the night." What does that even mean? I look around and I notice my brother and a few friends. Everyone looks scared. Surely, they're overreacting; I feel fine! Little did I know at the time, but so much morphine was pulsing through my system, that I wouldn't feel it if someone axed my arm off right then.
I closed my eyes, and when I woke up I was in some sort of waiting room. The Jungle Book was on the television, and my dad was sitting next to my bed watching it. He looked up at me and looked like he had been crying. "Everything is going to be okay, Jessie. They're just going to take your appendix out. They always do this with appendicitis." I believed him. But, what nobody was telling me was this: the fancy European treatment did not work with me. I did not respond to any of the medication. In fact, it was as if my body didn't even register any sort of treatment had been put into my body. So, the next day, when I should have been stabilizing, I was at the same level as someone with a day old untreated failed appendix. Because that's what I was. And when that happens, the infection, the one that essentially made your appendix explode, seeps into the rest of your organs and throughout your body. That's why I was sick. That's why I was dying. Because the infection from my appendicitis had spread to the rest of my vital organs. I wasn't just getting surgery. I was having emergency surgery through my abdomen while also being pumped.
So, when I woke up from my surgery in a room filled with get well soon cards, balloons, and flowers, I was horrified to find myself paralyzed. Well, I wasn't paralyzed. I only felt that way. The morphine was certainly weighing me down, but what I was feeling was the effects of my surgery. The emergency procedure that had cut through all of my abdominal muscles, rendering me without any abdominal muscle whatsoever. Basically, I wasn't even able to even sit up.
The next month was a horrible time of being bed ridden and having to re-learn how to walk and hold myself up. Not to mention the two stomach pumps that I had to empty three times a day. Emptying the still prevalent infection coursing through my body. Pumps that, eventually, had to be hand pulled out. You see, these pumps were inserted right under my belly button and they wrapped through all my guts and intestines. Yes, these were pulled out my stomach. I watched it happen. Wincing in pain and disgust. Oh, and there was the IV pump I had to drag around with me any time I was able to muster up the courage to move from one room to another. The IV went in through my left arm and was connected to a vital vein. It was explained to me that if I let any bubbles into my medicine before it pumped in, I could die. So, that was stressful.
Any way, that was probably way too much information, and if you just skimmed than you probably gathered I had appendicitis that required emergency surgery, leaving me unable to move. I'm not including a picture, for personal reasons. I am not ashamed of my scar, but I still do not want to take a picture of my gut for all of the internet to see. Haha. My scar will always be there. All three of them. One from the emergency surgery, and two from two separate stomach pumps. For a long time I was embarrassed of them. I thought they showed my body failing. You know, I don't really know what I thought. But as I've gotten older, I've realized that scars are beautiful representations of our struggles.
I would never try and make my scars disappear. And you shouldn't either! We have to love ourselves, and love our bodies. We are beautiful the way that we are, and we have to adore ourselves as much as we adore the bodies in the magazines we scour over. Believe me, we're perfect and beautiful, scars, pounds, and all!
Love and Luck,
Jessie :)
Thank you so much, Jessie, for helping me with The Story Behind the Scar series. Make sure to stop by her
blog and say hi!
If you have an interesting scar story I would LOVE to include you in my feature. Storytelling is a passion of mine, and I want to help you tell your stories. Shoot me an email at lindsaywright.tx@gmail.com if you'd like to be featured next!
