My Cancer Scar

Some people have been requesting more information about my cancer journey. So, I have decided to write about a new topic: my cancer scar.

You can't really see my scar that well from this lighting, but trust me it's there!

When I was first told that I had to do chemotherapy I was given two choices for how to receive my chemo: through an IV or having a port placed in my chest. The IV wouldn’t require any surgery but the chemo could damage my blood vessels. I wanted my twelve weeks of chemo done ASAP so I rushed into it and decided I would get a port placed if I had any issues. Sure enough, after one of my surgeries I had a huge bruise on my arm from the IV so I decided it was time for the port.

During the decision making process I was told that I might have a scar from my surgery. The day of my surgery I told the resident that when we went over my risks together. He told me “oh no, it will just be like a pencil line that you will hardly notice.” Yeah. Right. I don’t really mind the scar its just frustrating that I was misinformed the day of my surgery which leads me to believe either I wasn’t stitched up properly or the resident who performed my surgery didn’t really know what he was talking about. Either way, I still get frustrated when I think about it.

I really didn’t like having a port. It stuck out of my chest and it felt unnatural to have something like that in my chest, like I was a robot or maybe a badass Terminator. On the bright side, it did lead to some pretty funny awkward conversations. “What is that?”… “That’s… where my… chemo goes…” haha. And it was much more comfortable to have the chemo go in through my port than to have it go in through my IV.

For a while I had sort of a love-hate relationship with my scar. Some days I hated it, but not for esthetic reasons. I hated it because it was like I couldn’t escape my cancer, every time I looked in the mirror I had a reminder of my cancer. My scar is in a very visible place, you can see it when I wear a shirt, so it is not one of those scars you can easily hide. Still this wasn’t a huge issue, because many things reminded me of my cancer. It’s hard to get away from cancer once you’ve had it. For example, every time I saw someone smoking, especially someone my age, I wanted to scream “what the hell are you thinking?! I’m 23 and I have already had cancer and I didn’t do anything wrong!” Okay… it was much more explicit in my head. (I always ate really healthy, exercised and hardly ever drank alcohol.) But I know people have to make their own choices in life and my getting on a soapbox wouldn’t help anything.

            In weird way I sometimes loved my scar because it reminded me of my cancer. It’s… strange to go from the trauma of dealing with the cancer everyday to just trying to heal and recover by yourself. So, sometimes it was nice to have a reminder of what I went through and how I am stronger because of it. I am a different person now because of my cancer. I appreciate life more. I try not to let the little things in life bother me anymore, because in big scheme of things those little life "stressors" that used to stress me out don’t matter. I also appreciate the people around me more and I find it easier for me to share my affection with them. Therefore, it is sometimes nice to have the reminder of my cancer.