Scar Stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Most nearly everyone has a scar story. Some people have little chickenpox scars, some people have enormous shark bite scars. Some people got hit on the head with a hammer in a chemistry class, some people fell off a swing when they were six and now have a rugged scar on their chin which they pretend they got in a fight. I have a cool scar on my leg. This is the story of the scar on my leg.

When I was nine years old, and my mum was far away doing theatre things in America, I slept in my parents’ bed until my dad came to bed, at which point he would carry me to my own bed. This particular night I was sleeping in the Giant Parents’ Bed, just like most nights. I remember getting up and going to the bathroom and that my leg felt a bit sore but I went back to bed and fell back asleep. A little while later, at about 11.30pm, I wanted a drink of water. I got up and was walking down the stairs when my dad turned round and suddenly shouted “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR LEG?” and I looked down there was blood pouring down the outside of my right leg. Naturally, I was a bit perturbed. My dad carried me to the kitchen and sat me on the counter and checked that I was generally okay. I don’t remember feeling any pain, just a bit of an ache, and my dad went next door to get the neighbour to call for an ambulance (dad’s deaf).

The ambulance came and I got a ride in it and it was cool but they wouldn’t put the siren on for me. At the hospital they found me a bed and me and my dad sat and read comics and stuff for four hours until they could see me (hey, it’s free). The nurse asked me how many stitches I thought I would have and I said six, but in the end I had nine and I was very brave because my dad has a phobia of needles and I had to be there all on my own. The nurses who injected me was a student nurse and the needle slipped. I remember that hurting. At the end of it all I got a certificate to say how brave I was.

When we got home at about 5am, we went to have a look at what caused the cut. That was when we say that despite sleeping on a white sheet, there was only one drop of blood. No blood anywhere else. None on the floor. None in the bathroom. There was nothing sharp in the bedroom and nothing sharp in the bathroom. Nothing which could have caused such a deep cut. The edge of the toilet seat was the wrong height and not nearly sharp enough. There were no protruding springs in the bed. My dad looked and looked, concerned that I could cut myself again, but we never ever found out what it was. Seriously, we don’t have a clue what could’ve caused it. But it does mean I have a cool scar.

Personally, I think it was elves.

What’s your scar story?

2

I was 16, substituting on a friend’s morning newpaper route. Had my mom’s car and another friend to help.

I was driving and reading the list, my friend was delivering nearly all the papers. Feeling a bit guilty about this, I saw two adjacent houses on the list and grabbed two papers. Dropped the first one on the front stoop, made a beeline for the stoop next door. It was 5 AM and dark, but I remember thinking “there might be a fence.” A split second later I ran into the fence. It was a few feet high, protecting some plants. It was a %#&@$# BARBED WIRE FENCE!* Right in the middle of suburbia–no one had BARBED FLIPPING WIRE fences around here! (So I would have thought.)

Ripped my pants–and my flesh–about mid-thigh. Zipped home to clean and dress the wounds, completed the route. The scars are still there decades later.

Finishing the route, I found the weight of my pants painful on the wounds, so I pulled my pants down to my knees while driving. Now my friend was doing ALL the delivery, and I felt guiltier. So there I was, 5:30 AM, trotting up to someone’s door with a paper in one hand and my belt, at knee level, in the other. Would have made a great video.

3

When I was eight years old, my dad’s friend Bill invited us over for a bit of a cookout. Bill and his wife, Ann, were a bit older than my parents and their children were grown, so occasionally we got to go to their house and be their ‘adopted’ grandkids.

Anyway.

Bill and Ann had a big inground swimming pool in their back yard, complete with a wonderful slide that my brother and I thought was just the neatest thing in the world. That particular day, only my brother and I were in the pool and the adults were cooking hamburgers and drinking beer, I think.

I was going down the slide into the pool laughing and squealing because it was so FUN. (Somewhere in here I should have mentioned that Bill had a very protective boxer dog, and Frannie was her name.) Frannie got scared, apparently, and thought that I was drowning because I was giggling and squealing. She launched herself into the pool and as I was doggy-paddling to the side, she swam to me and sunk her fangs into my left hip.

I was more than terrified as Frannie pulled me to the side of the pool and ‘safety’. It wasn’t until after all this had happened that Bill told us she once did the same thing to him, only she pulled him back to the side of the pool by his arm.

My hip didn’t require any stitches, but I still have the scar. I never went in that pool again unless Frannie was outside the chain link fence that ran around it.

4

I have a scar on my cheekbone, right below my right eye. It’s about a half an inch long, but it’s faded a lot.

I was 4 years old, and I was taking a bath. My sister, who is 10 years older than me, was supposed to be watching me. She was too busy staring into the mirror, so I decided I could play around.

I got out of the tub, got two bars of soap, and a pair of shoelaces. I was convinced that I could go water-skiing in the bathtub. I tied the two bars of soap to my feet, stood in the corner of the tub, and jumped. I slipped as soon as I hit the water, (of course!) and hit the corner of my eye on the shower door track. I remember everything distinctly, up until hitting my eye. Then I remember my parents carting me off to the pediatricians’ office to get stitched up. It took 2 stitches inside and 4 on the outside. (Yech!) When they were putting the stitches in, they had to literally tie me down. I remember the board that they used to tie me to was shaped like a gingerbread man. They did not cover my eyes, so I actually had to sit and watch the doctor with an extreme close-up view. (I think this partly contributes to my paranoid fear of needles.) Then, after everything was done, we went to a restaurant that a friend of ours owned, and I got ice cream.

Now you can only see the scar when I smile, and it’s kind of like an oddly-placed wrinkle more than anything else. That’s the only interesting scar I have; the rest of them are from knee surgery, chicken pox, and skateboarding.

5

My first job was at a bagel store.

After about 10 months, I learned how to bake. During my first week as a baker, I bumped my arm against the top of the oven opening. As I recoiled in pain, I bumped my arm against the bottom of the opening. Now I have scars on the top and bottom of that arm. But what’s weird is that no hair grows there. But since I’m a chick and my arm hair is blonde, it’s not really noticable.

Also (a bit more traumatic)–when I was 5 or so, I went with my mom and her then-boyfriend to a fair. He was a smoker. He won a prize in one of the games and said he’d give it to me. I was excited and did the typical excited-kid thing of running around. He had a lit cigarette between his fingers at waist level. I ran around and my hand slammed into it. The entire cherry fell off into the back of my hand. I stood there and looked at it a bit in disbelief (it really didn’t hurt then). When the injury was fresh, I could stick my pinky almost a quarter of an inch into the back of my hand.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is why I’ve never had the urge to smoke. It’s also why I get freaked out when I’m in crowds of smokers. I’m like Jack Nicholson in “As Good as it Gets”–“Don’t touch!”. But, on the upside, I’ve never had any trouble telling my left hand from my right.

6

I have three good scars on my right hand (from a bad knife cut, a jar shattering when I was opening it, and getting pinched in a boat lift axle), but my best is a two-inch long scar on my right shoulder. Here is it’s story:

In high school, I was an avid cyclist (still am, but the story takes place in high school). At the time, my bike was having a problem with the chain. It would occasionally slip on the chainring and skip a couple teeth. I didn’t know the cause at the time, and it occurred so infrequently, it was hard to figure out the exact problem.

Anyway, one day while out on a ride, I was descending a hill at about 25 or 30 mph when the chain started skipping. I looked down at the chain to figure out what was going on, and wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. At the bottom of the hill I looked up and saw I was heading straight for a mailbox, and there was no way to stop in time. I tried to swerve and avoided hitting the box straight on, but still caught the box with my shoulder. I turned around to examine the mailbox and was pleased with the big dent I left in it and the twisted door (it was one of those flimsy metal arch-shaped boxes), checked over my bike, and continued on my way. I was on my way home anyway and only a few miles away.

When I got home, I put my bike away and at that moment I noticed the entire shoulder of my t-shirt was soaked with blood. No wonder people were staring at me! I never felt any pain at all on the ride home (must have been adrenaline or something). I had a nice jagged cut, and a little bruising. The funny thing is, the shirt itself was not cut or torn at all. It’s like the force of the impact just pulled the skin apart or something.

7

I have a many scars from a life of being clumsy.

My most interesting is on my left forearm. I was at a party and feeling no pain at all (you see I was a little the worse… or better… for drink).

ANyway this fine young thing descided she was going to fancy herself a vampire… now since she wasn;t a real vampire she couldn;t bit me so out come the fillet knife and swoosh. She tastes some of the red red vino that flows forth. I tie off with a towel and progress to drinking again.

I think later that night i passed out or something… a few days later the girl apologized and thus started an odd freindship between she and i… We never consummated the friendship 9although I could have) and eventually she went on to someone who would.

8

At school, some guy stole something from me, and I was tearing after him through the halls to get it back. He was a buddy of mine, and we were just joking around, but same thing. So he heads off down a long hall, and outside. I’m slower than him, so by the time I get to the door, it’s closed again. It’s one of those school doors, with the two windows, with the safety wire in it. I just stuck my arm out to slam the door open so I could keep going. It was locked, though. Next thing I know, I’m outside, with blood pouring down my arm.

The scar’s really small, actually, but it was a hell of a hubbub at the time. Scared the hell out of the office workers when I wandered in, raised my arm and yelled ‘Uh, I got a problem here…’. Bastard doctor didn’t freeze me for the stitches, either.

Oddest part, on the way out I was barreling past these two tiny girls, the kind that sit in the back of class and won’t say ANYTHING. Real shy like. They looked scared enough when I was roaring down the hall, but coming back covered in blood? I’ve never seen two human beings go that white. Damn.

9

So many scars–where do I begin?
Well–there’s the one on my right palm that looks like a headless stickwoman cavorting about and stretches from my wrist to 1/2 way up my hand. I got that bad boy when I was 12 and sneaking out with a friend to go to a party. Despite our best attempts at rebellion, we were scared into running back home by a creepy guy on the corner. I slipped in some gravel and quickly reached up to grab at a fence hoping to break my fall. The spikes at the top weren’t bent over though, so instead I ended up with a gaping hole in my hand. 17 stitches. The funny part is, I was more afraid of going back in to tell my mom I’d hurt myself outside (after 10pm–gasp!) than I was of the stitches I knew were on their way.

I’ve also got one (well, more than one–but I’m trying to focus, OK?) on my noggin, left side, right where the top of your head starts to curve down towards your ears. I was a catcher, I was practicing without a helmet. I was hit. 15 stitches and a quarter of a shaved head were my reward for that little practice session. Later in college, I shaved my head for a while. The stitches–which the doctor assumed would be hidden under hair–had been rather frankenstien-like, and I got a LOT of comments on the monster scar they left behind.

There’s more–many, many more–but I’ll stop now. Klutzes of the world, unite!

bella

10

Age 7: One evening after dinner (something Dad had grilled), I went out to the still-warm hibachi to roast some marshmallows. I like 'em well done so I normally wait until each catches fire before eating. Only I was too slow with one and it dropped onto my left thumb. Fortunately I knew enough first aid to put my thumb under the backyard tap.

Age 12: I was enjoying a summer day, bicycling uphill toward our new home while wearing a tank top and shorts, no shoes. I lost control of the bike at the top of the hill, fell off and skinned my big toe, right knee, and right shoulder. The only sign of that accident now is the 1½" diameter spot on my shoulder that is completely almost completely absent of freckles. Now, I’m pretty sure the reason I lost control is because the front axle was failing; it completely broke four years later.

Age 16: No, nothing to do with that broken axle. Like Francesca, I had just climbed into bed and noticed a pain in my right thigh. I didn’t think anything of it until morning when I noticed blood on my sheets and a scab on my thigh. My bed was next to a metal desk and I had one of the extensions out; on that extension was a pencil with no eraser. Near as I can figure, while I was getting in bed I brushed against the bare metal where the eraser normally would have been. When Mom noticed the bloodstained sheets, she started fussing at me for not putting them in cold water immediately. I’m like, “Mom, I would have but I had no idea I was bleeding!”

11

We’re outside her house, me and a friend named Mike. We’re teasing her, saying we’re gonna go to Tower Records and not let her come. She is squealing in protest. We’re young, and I think I might be in love. Mike and I run and hop in my dad’s car. I start it up and pretend like I’m driving off, only very very slowly. She JUMPS ON THE HOOD! What the hell, we’re teenagers, we do dumb stuff like that. I brake gently, but oh no - I forgot, dad fixed the brakes two days ago, and now they work really well. She rolls off the hood, bangs up her knee pretty bad. We get out of the car, make sure she’s okay, get her bandaged up. It looks pretty bad, but she seems to be okay. The knee heals, sort of. I feel terrible, and realize now I’ll never date her, cause I hit her with my car.

I was wrong. We did date. We become the first love of each others’ lives. But it doesn’t last. Fifteen years later here we are, married to different people. I still dream about her. The back of my mind wonders if, on Earth-2, we’re married. I wonder if she thinks about me as fondly as I do her.

Maybe not. But she’ll never forget me. I’m right there on her knee.

12

Well Puddin’, ya beat me to it. I was rootin’ around in old threads and found this one. (And it was Art class anyway. Right on the first page.)

I was going to whip it up into a Monday Morning Post. Pretty much what you have going on here. But now I won’t. Not that I’m bitter or anything, but see if I have anything for Monday now.

I have plenty more scars to chat about. A few of them have a decent story too. Mostly along the lines of “I wasn’t paying attention and fell down.”

There’s a scar through my right eyebrow. I got it across the street when I was growing up. I don’t remember how old I was, but I think about 8. The neighbor boy and I were poking around in his garage and found one of those old springy chest exerciser things. The ones that’ll rip the hair right off your chest. We had it stretched clean across the garage when his hands slipped. Bang! right into my right eye. It took four stitches to close up and it scratched my cornea, so I had to wear an eye patch for a couple of weeks.

The hammer scar is under my left eye.

And I think they were gnomes rather than elves.
-Rue.

13

Let’s see. What story to relate…

…the scar a half-inch from my right eye that came as a result of an amorous incident? Nah, for another time.

…the scar on little lno that came as a result of another amorous incident? Nah, for another time.

…the thirty-square-inch scar on my right leg? That’s the one.

To make a long story only somewhat shorter, I was playing on the company softball team in April 2000. I slid into second base very poorly, having made the decision to slide too late, and took the brunt of the slide on my right shin, bent beneath me. In the dugout, I tried to wash out the grit with a water bottle, but most of it was buried too deep. That night, while sitting in a warm bath, I lightly scrubbed the rest of the gravel and sand out of the abrasion with a soft washcloth, and went to sleep.

This abrasion developed a scab over the next day or so - and it was large enough for a grown man to put his hand on it and still be able to see at least a half-inch of scab all the way around. No problem, right? Cool to look at and poke, right?

…until I realized that when I stood, the fluid pressure in my lower leg was greater than when I sat or laid down, and the pressure against the inside of the scab caused it to … um, leak.

For a decent length of time that May and June, I went about my life with a large cotton bandage swathed around my right shin and calf. Gradually the scab disappeared, much to my delight, leaving me with a hairless pink rubbery scar of roughly the same dimensions. This stood out rather noticeably against the rest of my leg.

By now the hair has grown back, the scar has faded, but is still there if you look. To get a feeling for the size of this, put your hand down on a piece of paper with fingers together and draw a circle around it. Lift your hand, and imagine a scar of that size on your shin. Small wonder I wore long pants for the rest of that summer.

14

When I was about 5 years old I was playing with the neighbor’s chihuahua “Poochie”. Poochie was an older, mild tempered dog and I was much attached to him. He was lying on the lawn chewing a bone. I decided to lie next to him and pick burrs out of his fur. After a while, he decided he’d had enough and turned and bit me in the upper lip, splitting it. 40 years later I still have a faint line running from my left nostril to my lip. God I loved that dog!

15

Well, my older brother has an appendectomy scar, which he calls his “Heidelberg dueling scar.”

And my son has a scar on the top of his head. I discovered the wound one evening after his bath. I was combing his hair, and there was an enormous fresh scab on the top of his head! My wife had gone out, and I was frantic about how this had happened. My daughter calmly said, “Oh, yeah, that must be where the bicycle fell on his head.” Seems he was playing outside that day and a bicycle tipped over. He was just a little kid, so it landed on the top of his head. Weird, but he’s the scratch-and-dent model of our two children anyway.

I have a couple of finger scars. I was slicing a bagel one evening, and, stupid me, just kept slicing right into my left index finger. It didn’t hurt, but it bled like nobody’s business, and needed something like three stitches.

I also have a crescent-shaped scar on my right thumb. I was replacing some windows, and trying to dig out the dried grout with a utility knife. It slipped and embedded itself into the pad of my thumb. I should have gotten stitches, but didn’t.

16

On my upper left arm, opposite the bottom of my armpit, is a long fucker due to my friend Mike. Last year on Valentine’s Day my girlfriend at the time had given me one of those pens where the end is a bubble blower and the bubble fluid is this stuff that sticks around, so when you blow on it the floor becomes covered with goey bubbles. Know what I’m talking about? Anyway, the pen itself was pretty crummy so i broke off the pen part, leaving the bubblemaker with a jagged edge. Chemistry that day we were supposed to be working on lab reports but our teacher didn’t care if we made it social hour. So I showed a group of friends my Valentine’s Day gift and one of them, Mike, wanted to use it. I had a limited amount of fluid, so I said no. Mike doesn’t take no for an answer so he tried to grab it from me, and I wouldn’t let go. During our tussle the jagged edge scraped across my arm, creating a massive gash that didn’t bleed but looked pretty bad.

Also, my family used to have these kiddy plastic chairs that you get for a buck at KMart (well, not any more). There’s a reason they cost a dollar. Back then I was a real string bean, so I didn’t weigh more than the chair was supposed to hold. Unfortunately I sat down on one at a barbecue and CRACK it snapped. A jagged edge created a really deep gash and it was very bloody. I wasn’t hurt too bad, but now on the back of my right knee there’s what looks like an animal bite.

I’ve also got a few surgical scars, but those are boring.

17

My son, Halford the Human Eel, has a triangle-shaped scar in the center of his forehead. This is because he is the only person ever to cut himself on a balloon.

Well, sorta.

It came about this way: When he was two, some friends of ours had a birthday party for one of their daughters. The gave him a balloon because, hey, two-year-olds love balloons.

So he was running around the living room, creating air currents and kicking the balloon around, yelling, “Balloon, balloon, balloon!” and he accidentally stepped on it and lost his balance.

This propelled his little head into the corner of a protruding drawer, creating a triangle-shaped hole in his forehead.

Two stitches later, he was almost good as new.

The balloon, I’m sorry to report, had to be destroyed.

18

Oh, I have two scars.

one is really tiny. I took a lump out of my lip while shaving. its really tiny.

The other scar is on the inside of my left knee. I split it open on glass while playing hurling at the age of 10.

19

WhenI was about 6 years old, I was at my cousin’s house for a birthday party. My cousin has horses, and I wanted to go into the stables to see them.

Big mistake.

My cousin also had a dog, a big border collie, who had a habit of jumping up and nipping at the horses.

I walked into the stable and was petting a horse when the dog came in. I took little notice of it because I was more intrested in the horses. The dog came up to me and jumped up once and bit at the horse.

The second time it jumped, it bit my hand and would not let go. It shook its head several times and began to drag me by my hand out of the stables. By this time I was screaming as loud as I could, but no one came since they thought I was just playing with the other children and making a racket.

The dog dragged me another 10 feet or so outside the stables before my dad noticed and came running to save me. There was a lot of blood, but I was all right, and I’m sparing you the rest of the details.

Luckily, the dog had all it’s shots and I dod not get any weird diseases, but I do have a few nasty scars on my hand to this day. It’s actually the only way I can tell my right hand from my left.

20

I only have two scars, both from when I was about 3. I don’t remember getting the first (and smallest) of them, apparently I ran into a coffee table when I was really little. Now I have a dent about an inch above my eyebrow. (Interesting note: It used to be in my eyebrow, but it migrated.)

The second I got from the old-style metal weather stripping on a door. Y’see, I was supposed to be asleep, not sneaking around, and my dad opened the door, scraping a nice chunk out of my foot. This much I remember. What I don’t remember is getting strapped to a papoose board, and telling the doctor “Goddammit, you’re hurting me!”. Good times were had by all.

After these incidents, I apparently got wise, and started to use my little sister as a body shield for dangerous things. “Here, why don’t you ride down the hill in the wagon first?”

I also have a really cool birthmark that only shows up when I have a tan. It looks exactly like a standing person. (Yeah, I know, that’s not a scar. See the above paragraph for why I don’t have more stories to tell.)