Scarred
Ra-ta-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta-ta. The sound of helicopter propellers swirling into the sky was the last thing I remembered before the IV in my arm was pumped with morphine, fentanyl, and other potent drugs. Thirty minutes earlier, I was driving down a neighborhood hill in a golf cart, relaxing during my vacation in Malibu, and when the brakes failed, the golf cart lost control, flipped on me, dragged me down the hill. I was stuck, pinned underneath it. Every part of me felt shattered, like a bullet hitting glass, spraying the remnants everywhere. This had to be a nightmare, and I was ready to wake up and escape the pain. However, the gushing blood, ringing in my ears, and the uncontrollable feelings that I was about to die, those would not leave. I was escaping consciousness, but not in the way I was hoping, pleading, begging for. I was going into shock. Over the course of the next four months, I was stuck in a hospital bed, feeling like the victim of doctors and nurses who would poke, prod, and cut me open countless times. I felt scared. Helpless. Alone. Unsure of what the future would hold. During this time of chaos and uncertainty, including five emergency surgeries in eight days, the word that began to dominate the conversations was “scarring.” Extensive scarring, hypertrophic scarring, keloid scarring, slow-healing scarring, hyperpigmented scarring, the list went on. After leaving the hospital, and staring down at my now mangled body, I’d be lying if I said there were no tears. I’d be lying if I said there was no self-pity and frustration. I’d be lying if I said this has not continued. During my interminable rehabilitation process, I felt like a glass figure, a fragile statue that would crack and shatter at a moment’s notice. For days, I just felt completely helpless, in a bed, unable to walk, just staring down at these disgusting scars forming like rapidly growing, unwanted weeds. The moment that brought me lucidity about the caliber of these scars was four months after my accident, when I was going to Walgreens to get my COVID vaccine. I had gotten the call in the evening that they had an extra dose. I rushed to the car, not thinking about the fact that I was wearing shorts, but rather that it was getting dark and no one would see me. Walking in, waiting in line, I noticed a girl, around twelve years old, walk beside me with her mother. She turned, peered down at my legs, her eyes widened, and I crossed my fingers that what I thought was about to happen would not. She instantly burst into tears. She was then carried out of the store by her apologetic mom. Behind this fake mask, I am sure she was wondering what in the world I was doing there without covering my scars. Waiting was excruciating, I could not have escaped any faster. I was a frightening alien, a creature from a different planet. This was my moment of clarity. Of realization. This was the last time I ever left my house without wearing pants and concealer on all of my scars. As I came to understand the meaning of these scars—no more playing sports, no more wearing shorts or short-sleeve shirts—I realized that I needed to stop focusing on the “no” aspects of what this accident meant for me. Just as the scars would, my trauma would begin to heal and my life would start to piece back together, like the remnants of a shattered glass figure molding back into place.
