Christine

It started Dec 5, 2016. “Your Dr. needs to see you. Can you come in in an hour?”

I knew my biopsy results wouldn’t be good but I didn’t expect anything serious. Or maybe I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. Either way, I wasn’t prepared to hear, “I’m sorry Christine, the results show that you have melanoma skin cancer. It’s very aggressive”.

I had melanoma - the most aggressive form of skin cancer that kills an avg of 9,320 US citizens a year as the numbers rise. All the Dr. could tell me was that they removed most of it but not everything. “Clean margins”. That’s what she kept saying. “We need to go back and get clean margins and make sure we remove all of the cancer.”

Fast forward a few very long, painful days, and I’m on the surgery table being marked out for where they would cut. I remember the plastic surgeon saying, “You’re going to have a really big scar but I’m going to do my best to make it look good.”

At the time I couldn’t have cared less about how big it would be. I said, “I don’t care how big the scar is, just get all the cancer out of me!”

The scar is big, ugly, bulky, the purple colour just isn’t flattering agains my skin tone. That’s what I thought when I first saw it. I threw all my open back shirts in a bag in the back of my closet where I couldn’t see them. No way will anyone see this ugly scar. I couldn’t even look at it. Every time I did I got angry and sad. I couldn’t look past the ugliness of it. I couldn’t look past the fact that it ruined so many of my outfits. It ruined my appearance. I couldn’t look past the pain it represented, the fear and anxiety that came along with it. I forgot what the scar meant. What it did for me.

Because of that “ugly” scar I am alive. Because of that “ugly” scar I get to spend more time with my husband. I get to watch my boys grow up. I got a second chance.

I pulled my open back shirts back out. I don’t care if people stare at me and my “ugly” scar. I don’t care if people ask me what happened. I don’t care how my scar looks. I don’t care because my beautiful scar is what saved my life and I am not ashamed of it anymore.