NON-FICTION: Scar

August 16, 2008, I woke up to see a black oval framing a white picture of my soul carved in my right calf. I could have sworn the small veins that showed in the middle spelled "relief" but of course that was just a fidgit of my imagination. I got this scar because I juggled an English tutorial work with three media productions projects, final thesis and college dancing. The day after my last dance performance, I was driving off to the next town riding a motorcycle with my twin when I suddenly had my first seizure attack. While shaking, my foot was locked on the funnel of the vehicle. Even though I was wearing pants, the heat of the funnel managed to burn my skin as if it was destined to leave a reminder of one moment in my life where I survived.


The last skin doctor I consulted about my leg burn told me that I could lessen the chance of having a severe looking 4x4 inches scar by having a skin graft. That would allow her to take a portion of skin from my buttocks and implant it into the 2nd degree burn in my right calve. A beauty conscious woman like I was could not have wanted anything less than to take a large ugly scar away. But like any major operation, I had to spend thousands of money. Something that my family could not afford during that time.




Prior to my consultations with the Doctora, I risked a meeting with skin doctors from a commercial hospital in Davao. There were several attempts to clear the puss out from my wound. One doctor debrided my wound without any anesthesia. The process was traumatic. I could hear my voice shouting as I felt the murderous pain and smelled the blood that willingly dripped from my calf.


Due to the difficulty in continuing the process, the doctor asked me to come back a week after. Another doctor attended to me and told me that the process the other doctor did was a mistake. According to him, I should have been admitted to the hospital for surgical debridement as soon as possible. While waiting for the right date, the doctor asked me to apply a 3rd solution into my burn daily. Instead of healing, the wound worsened and even expanded to half an inch on all sides.


Despite the unsecured funds, I decided to have myself admitted. I stayed inside the hospital while my twin sister went off to call my relatives for help. But because someone in the family had a more severe illness, no one had the finances to send us money for my operation. So I had to get out from the hospital and look for another way to have my wound taken cared of.


The process of finding an alternative was agonizing even bordering to depressing. My swelling wound disallowed normal rest and introduced an annoying short attention span. But I had to finish my school projects without sharing the hassle that the wound offered every single day. The itchy and biting sensation I experienced every time I took a bath could have normally been a distraction. But my innate character to escape malady through other activities helped me get over it. No one could have thought that I had a swelling wound underneath the right leg of my pants. Somehow, I just gathered the power to remain superficially happy despite the growing anxiety of a possible amputation.


However, it is true when they say that right advices come from people who once broke our spirits. And that, aid resides in places we were prompted to go to in the past. I say this because my elder sister finally got an advice from one of her colleagues that there was certain doctor from Maharlika Foundation who was an expert of skin restoration but did not accept any consultation fees. The teacher who advised my sister used to be the Registrar who strongly disapproved my transfer to the college and gave the decline as an insulting gift for my 18th birthday. The Maharlika Foundation, on the other hand, was a former client. A couple of months before I got my wound, I performed a contemporary dance piece at that organization's annual anniversary. They gave me a membership card as a form of their gratitude which I hid in my wallet until that chance to visit the foundation arrived.


When the Doctora from the foundation saw the wound, the first thing she asked me was why I did not visit her earlier. Her tone was so puzzled it was as if she was thinking why the wound had traces of many wrong medical practices. Because of the maturity of the injury, the wound was bound to scar. During that time, dark frames were already forming around it. She said that she could have found a way to stop the puss and prevent the inevitable scarring had I consulted her immediately.


To clean the harmful puss, she recommended aquacel, a primary wound dressing made from sodium carboxymethylcellulose. The dressing was considered an alternative for the very expensive debridement surgery. I was to change the dressing ones a week until the puss is thoroughly taken away and the wound clean and ready for skin grafting. One aquacel costs about 800 pesos so my twin and I had to look for money to buy that on top of our personal expenses and the money we had to collect for the planned major surgery.


But I was not able to save money. I only had enough to buy the dressing of which worked so quickly in two months. The aquacel already took away the green and ugly looking puss that used to cover my wound like stuck-up seaweed. After witnessing that speedy development, I had to let go of the urgent plan to have a skin graft and decide to witness the healing and the inevitable scarring. The Doctora was teary eyed when she learned that I would give up the chance of getting my fair skin back. Luckily, work was offered to me so I had more chances to take my mind off that health problem especially during the intervals when I did not need to redress the injury. Slowly, the healing trauma on my skin draw a black frame that soon became the inelegant looking scar I would decide to keep for another two more years.


For forty weeks, I would buy aquacel, a disinfectant, plain and elastic bandages and a 500mg mefenamic acid. The process was not easy because the burning pain I received after the aquacel was applied squeezed tears from my eyes. But later, I would realize that the pain had subsided thanks to my twin sister's comfort supplementing the pain reliever. The black frames around the wound grew larger and larger each week as the blood ridden lesion compressed and tightened both deep and surface level. My twin would measure the wound using her thumb until the size of the opening was already measurable by the centimeter ruler she used for her Architectural drawings. Soon, I forgot how the pain felt as I anticipated the final healing. Contrary to pain, the feeling of getting healed is usually the most forgotten. That is why there should always be a mark to remind that it occurred.

by Glorypearl Dy

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