Unveiling

When I got out of the hospital, the lateral portion of my leg had about 100 one-half inch steri-strips holding my incision together. Up to this point, I had totally forgotten about the fact that the surgeon was going to have to cut me open at the hip to get in and fix my hip joint. I was worried about so many other things that had nothing to do with the actual appearance of my leg. When I saw my incision in the hospital for the first time, swollen and bruised, with a hemovac drain and what appeared to be hundreds of steri-strips and no staples or stitches, I was duly impressed by the verisimilitude of it all. 20 years ago, when I shattered my femur, the distal bone shot out the back of my leg putting a significant hole just below my right buttock. The orthopedic surgeon neatly sutured me back up with a "smile-shaped" sew job about 4 inches south of the lower layers of my ski-racing onion booty acquired by years of back squats and lunges and too many girl scout cookies. Of course, you don't fix a shattered femur with super glue and arthroscope. Nooooo.....you make an 11-inch incision that will accommodate a 7-inch plate, 13 screws and the power drill that drives those screws into what is left of the pieces. And, you don't get started until you paralyze the thigh muscles to relax, lengthen the muscles, and reposition the bottom half of the leg back in to position, a process that took approximately 3 hours. That 11-inch incision was closed with 25 staples and yielded a scar to be proud of. It was similar to a mini, railroad track and made for great conversation at pool parties. People would take note of the big scar and exclaim something along the lines of, "Wow! That's some scar! What happened?"

Whereupon, I would say something flip such as, "broke my femur......," while turning around, "....and that's where it popped out the back of my leg!" It was good for a wince or a grimace and depending on how many mint juleps I had on board, I would make up some witty response to the "how" question.

"My chute didn't open...."

"Shark."

as if the real story wasn't good enough....

"Hit a finish post at 60mph....on skis.....in a World Cup race.....in Switzerland."

"No really....what happened?"

When they removed the bandages after my hip replacement, I still couldn't see the extent of the scar because of all the steri-strips. When it dawned on me that it was possible to have yet a third scar on the same leg, my spirits dipped. Scars are tattoos with better stories. I would much rather have a really good story to go with my lateral dysmorphia, and something other than, I got drunk at prom and woke up with a disfigurement that is there to sag and fade along with my youthful pulchritude. If I am going to have a mark that will require the first layer of skin of my buttocks to reverse, than I hope that mark is accompanied by a prodigious story of "no shit, there I was....." and epic circumstances. Whatever the mark(s), one very long, very obvious scar is difficult to pull off for a short girl with stout legs and a small breast size, and a second scar in an unappealing place begins to call one's femininity into question. This notwithstanding, if it has a great story, even a small-breasted girl of average beauty and intelligence can pull this off as a the mark of a badass rather than the victim of an unfair circumstance or the mark of an idiot. Needless to say, I leave the part about being on the 1988 Olympic team and my accident happening six weeks before the Olympic games out of my story. It's a bit of a momentum killer. So when I contemplated yet a third scar on a leg with very little un-maimed real estate left, I was thinking my right leg would probably need to be shrouded in lycra for the remainder of my life. Flo-Jo's asymmetrical sports fashions came to mind. However, the physician's assistant told me something that made my day.

"Dr. Schmalzried was able to utilize your old scar for your incision."

"Um, yeah, but, my hip is up here," I said as I gestured to my obvious anatomy.

She replied, "Yes, well, now that scar is just a little longer."

A little? That's the understatement of the week! It wraps around my left cheek in the shape of a hockey stick. What was once 11 inches is now a healthy and astounding 17 inches! Yes, that's right. I am zippered from my knee to my rear. It is huge.

The other interesting thing is that the surgeon didn't use stitches for the last layer of closure. I am marginally astounded that on a portion of anatomy that has the most potential to 'spread,' especially on a short, stocky person of my stature, the physician simply "taped" my leg back together. I worried this was not going to be effective.( If you know me by now, you know me to be of little faith. ) This made for difficult wound maintenance.

I was informed by my medical team on how to care for my incision. 48 hours after surgery, they say you can shower. They recommend not submerging the incision in water for the first few weeks until the steri-strips have fallen off and the wound has healed properly. The reason for this is to prevent infection. Infection can have nasty results on a healing scar and a new hip implant. I was not about to test this advice. Rather than take any chances, I wrapped my leg and my butt in plastic wrap prior to showering. You can probably imagine how sexy dimpled skin on an atrophied leg looks when wrapped in plastic....NOT sexy by any means. I then, used white, athletic tape to seal the edges and keep it on my leg for the duration of my showering experience, which, by the way, was just short of heaven (the warm water, the clean feeling, the gentle massage of the water on my bed-ridden skin.....it was glorious). It almost made me forget about how much muscle mass I had lost. Afterward, I would remove the plastic wrap and clean around the edges with hydrogen peroxide or alcohol on a Q-tip. This process was cumbersome and time-consuming, so taking a daily shower was a bit of an ordeal. While I wanted to shower every day, it seemed that my bandages and my psyche benefitted from a bit of a break in between. Plus, I was slow with the undressing, getting in and out of the showertub, drying off, and being extra careful not to slip on our tile floor. I alotted half my day for this in the beginning. Luckily, I had no other plans most of the time.

At the two week mark, the steri-strips started to fall off. Being a nurse and a former river guide, I have learned a trick or two when it comes to bandaging in wet environments. There's this stuff called Tincture of Benzoin. It smells nasty and when applied to the skin, creates an incredibly adhesive surface that almost anything will stick to. About the time my steri-strips started peeling off, I applied a layer of this on my skin along the edges of my incision and re-applied another whole box of 1/2" and 1/4- inch steri strips, literally wallpapering the side of my leg. I was still bruised and there was still some dried blood so I never got a really good look at the new scar in its entirety. All I knew is it was bigger. I couldn't help but wonder how "old" skin was going to heal compared to the healing of the rest of the scar that occurred 24 years ago.

I remained steadfast in my scar maintenance. I kept it dry and clean for 4 weeks which is the recommended time it takes for a deep thickness scar to fully heal. At the five week mark, the last of the steri-strips had fallen off and my new scar was unveiled. It's quite big. My new scar is worthy of the mileage that my right leg has traveled. It is a testament to medical technology and the good people who have gone through years of medical school, residency and fellowship to put humpty dumptys, such as myself, back together again.

Summer parties should be fun this year. Strangely, my new, long scar, makes the scar on the back of my leg seem smaller and of less importance, which is weird for me because that scar has a better story. Dwarfed by the new scar, the small scar made by my bone tearing a hole in my flesh 20 years ago now seems impotent. Clearly, I will need to practice my new punch lines.

"I'm a government experiment gone horribly bad...."

"I fell for one of the 3 classic blunders....." (for "Princess Bride" fans)

"My leg was torn off by: (Shamu, the Yeti, on a recent NASA shuttle re-entry....)"

"No really, I hit a post at 60 mph on skis....."

The last one is still the most plausible, but a little embellishment in the telling of a good story never hurt anyone......