Less Obvious Scars

My lesser  scars include: two 1-inch pale slits, one on the top of each foot where, up in those stirrups, die was injected for half a day. My pee turned blue. I considered having a pregnancy test; who but an urologist and me would appreciate the colour.

I have two bumps on my pelvis in the dimples at the back where they jammed a narrow cylinder into my bone for a core sample, another diagnostic test. I use almost the same tool to make holes in clay pots, which is way more relaxing.

I have one pale puncture mark on my neck from a needle aspiration biopsy of my miss-functioning thyroid. The scratching slide of the device inside my neck is still easy to recall. Near it is another puncture from the drain after having my thyroid removed.

I have twelve blue pinprick tattoos on my jaw and upper torso to show radiologists where to direct the beam. I feel more positive about nuclear energy than some of my friends, but I still don’t have a microwave in my home.

I have a callused vein in my right elbow. It’s where I shot up and now they use every couple of weeks for an INR blood test to determine how much warfarin to keep my blood clot free. Sometimes a newbie shakes their head and tells me, “Someday we’re going to have to use somewhere else.” Numerous tortuous explorations have revealed there is nowhere else.

I have bumps on my upper thighs from when I used to inject with a guy from King Crimson. He said it was safer to poke there, was worried about OD-ing and not being around for his kid. The high was the same; it just took a little longer than mainlining.

Some of my finger and toenails are misshapen since I lived in Cairo for four months. We stayed in a hostel and during siesta, houseflies would land on hangnail cuts that would get infected in the heat and two weeks later the nails would fall off.

On my forearm are two more travel scars from a drive to South America when a cow parasite decided to move in. We were camping one night in Costa Rica on the verge of the road near a cow pasture and I brushed something from my arm. Four weeks later I could see the white larvae broaching the holes in my arm. A Panamanian doctor put duct tape over it for 24 hours and the bugs went nuts. That night I squeezed out a centimeter long, CN Tower shaped critter and showed it to my American hosts on a piece of tissue. It took longer for me to dig the other one out.

I have a few clusters of red cells on an earlobe. I have another cluster on my chest. Both are in the old radiation zone.

When I was twenty I have had four wisdom teeth extracted. When I was forty-seven I had two more back teeth taken out. My cheeks don’t cave in (yet).

And I have brain scars, some from treatments like the heart-lung machine, some from treatment. But who doesn’t have those?