Scar

If anyone else (besides Staci) had a question about the scar on my knee in my “show off my hiking boots” photo – here’s my answer (it’s hidden in the comments section, so you guys might not see it, otherwise):

Those really are my nasty ol’ scarred-up legs. Not a super story on the scar, but semi-noteworthy…

When I was about 7 – 8 months pregnant with Girl, I had a little fender-bender in Hubby’s truck that bent up the right front fender (somebody T-boned me, trying to pull onto Lamar at 2222 in front of me). There just happened to have been a really big hailstorm not too long before that and all of the body shops were swamped and couldn’t take his truck to be fixed for a couple of weeks.

During that time, I walked into the bent-up bumper and gashed open my knee. It was pretty gross – blood spurting and all. It didn’t hurt at all, but Hubby was mortified and felt awful (he went straight home afterward and hammered down the bent bumper so that the sharp part wasn’t sticking out anymore). We had just been out to lunch with my mom (we were treating, because she was updating our wills for us, because of the baby) and it happened as we were dropping her back off at her office downtown. There just happened to be a Dr. that worked in her office building and he fashioned a bandage out of a (clean) dishtowel from their office kitchen (thanks, Dr. Guckian!), but even he looked like he was going to pass out (he’d been teaching at the time and hadn’t actually practiced medicine in a while, plus I was alarmingly pregnant and there was a LOT of blood).

Did you remember that I used to work for a plastic surgeon? We called him and he met us at the hospital (thanks, Dr. B!) and stitched me up (no anesthesia, because of the baby). I couldn’t bend my knee while it was healing, plus I was on crutches (NO FUN when you’re pregnant) and couldn’t drive for a few weeks afterwards. I was really lucky that it didn’t hit any tendons or anything that could have messed with the functionality of my knee, so my knee works fine, it just looks ugly. Sometimes people ask if I’ve had knee surgery…I wanna say, “yeah, knee surgery with a can opener”. If I had knee surgery and my surgeon left me with a scar like that, I think I would sue…

Anyway, that’s the story….

PS – It’s not the plastic surgeon’s fault that my scar looks bad – the gash was just that long and deep (1/2 inch to 3/4 inch?), I wasn’t giving him a great situation to work with, but most knee surgery scars look much better than that, so… I actually think he did a very good job – it’s very smooth and flat and has never caused me a bit of pain.

I actually kinda like my scar; it think it makes me look “tough”; it’s my badge of honor. It also makes me think about Girl and how we went through it “together” and how cute and overprotective Hubby was of both of us. Sweet.