Here's How I Rang in the New Year...

Stitches. 

You know what I'm talking about, right?  Lots of blood, an ER visit, tons of anxiety (well, for me anyway...).  Yep, the whole shebang, right smack dab in the middle of my forehead.  

Now, it's ironic to me that I've only had stitches three times in my entire life.  ALL THREE TIMES the docs were stitching up my FACE.  Really??  I mean, seriously, what are the chances of that??  The first time was about twelve years ago.  I passed out during a visit to the doc (did I mention the word ANXIETY yet??).  I probably could have sued the pants off the guy, but I was young(er) and naive, and was DEVASTATED and embarrassed to have a gaping hole in the skin covering my face!  I mean to have to share your injury with the entire world AND have to come to grips with not looking quite so pretty (ha!) for awhile is pretty rough for a woman...well, for this woman anyway.  But, I sucked it up and moved on.  That whole "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" thing...     Yah.  Right.

The second time was even worse.  I was playing third base when a line drive ball took a bad hop.  Yep.  Smacked me right above the right eye.  Besides the layers of stitches, the bruising was horrendous.  Let me tell ya, THAT one did a job on my self-confidence for awhile!  But, after not leaving the house for several days, I finally came to terms with my new "tougher" look and faced the world.  I'll never forget a guy at work telling me he thought scars were sexy.  Needless to say, I steered clear from that guy after that. 

So anyway, you'd think I'd be a pro by now with getting my face stitched up.  And I guess in some sense, that is true.  Don't get me wrong...since I'm a HUGE weeny when it comes to needles, the anxiety of the procedure itself was still there.  But some of the other aspects changed since that first ER visit twelve years ago.  This time around, I was fairly calm and systematic:

We are doing some very minor renovations to the house.  Do the words "D-I-Y DISASTER" mean anything to you?  If so, then you get my drift...   Anyway, we're taking out a half wall between the kitchen and family room.  I'm not sure what the glory of these short little walls were in their day.  I mean seriously...if you want to make the layout of a house look more open, why put up a wall at all, right?  But, instead, they built these little half wall things...with spindles connecting them to the ceiling.  YUCK!!  So, taking out that ugly little useless wall has been on my to-do list for quite awhile.  Imagine my surprise when my husband walked through the door from work one day, handed me a hammer, and asked if I wanted to make the first hole in the wall.  Yippee!!!  In trying to get the ledge of that ugly little wall to "let go," there was enough vibration from the saw to send a three foot metal picture falling from where it hung above the doorway under which I stood.  Smacked me right between the eyes!!  I kid you not - the impact from this metal picture felt like the entire beam above me had come crashing down.  I literally could not move.  I was hunched over, looking at the floor, wondering what in the hell had just happened.  Drop.  Drop, drop.  By the third BIG drop of blood on my white ceramic tile floor, I snapped out of it.  I heard my husband saying, "Oh my God!  Oh my God!"  (Guess no one ever told him that you should NEVER, EVER say that to someone as blood is dripping out of them!)  I'm not sure if I was trying to calm him or trying to convince myself at that point, but I started chanting OK, it's ok, I'm ok as I slowly steered the drips over to the kitchen sink.  I pulled my husband together (I mean seriously!  He was a wreck!!) by giving him calm and specific instructions on how to clean up all evidence of blood and guts before the kids saw anything.  With a towel pressed to my head, I sat in the recliner hoping and praying that it wasn't as bad as my very creative mind was making it out to be.  But, a visit to the ER confirmed that I was on my way to the third set of stitches in my face.

I used the car ride home from the hospital to quietly review what I had learned about wearing stitches on my face.  First of all, no, they are not sexy.  Maybe that guy at work meant to say that beauty is more than skin deep.  No, stitches did not kill me and yes, they have made me stronger.  My scars are reminders of where I've been, what I've done and who I'm becoming.  They are reminders that we are fragile beings, inside and out, and that although we try to take care of ourselves, there will always be times when we have to ask for help, and find the grace to accept help...even if it means stitches in the face.