Life with a scar: Seven stories left on the body
We often talk about unique features of appearance. and how they are perceived, but scars are a separate topic. They are evidence of an often-hidden, personal story and a reminder of the past. We asked seven girls to tell how they got scars and how life developed after these very difficult events.
the appendix was removed, the surgical department manager performed the operation - after it there was a very small thin suture. But I complained: "That's why he told me here? Such a beautiful belly was." And then the ambulance brought me exactly to this surgeon again. Then I sewed everything up and down and laughed at me all the time: "Now you are not complaining?"
It seems to me now that this story has influenced my life for the better. I had a very short period of panic on the topic “how can you live with this all now?”, Which quickly ended, because living with scars is much better than lying in a coffin for example. Last year, in Los Angeles, I was bitten by a wasp, half my leg got inflamed, and then the ambulance, there was a scar. Once I fell from a longboard and bit my lip, looked in the mirror and thought: "Damn, the scar will remain." My daughter laughed and said: "Kamon, you have to stop worrying about it."
It is very important to understand right away that something can be done about it, but something cannot be done - it means there is nothing to think about. I quickly realized that the plastic can not cope and there is no point in it. Even if I really wanted to hide the scars, it is unlikely that something would come of it. I have everything in them: my arms, neck, my stomach is all streaked. I never hid them, bathed in an open swimsuit. My scars cause curiosity in people - and this is normal. I can tell all sorts of amazing stories or intrigue. More often I don’t say anything - people think out all kinds of car accidents or mystical incidents.
which they did because they were completely shocked. And it is absolutely impossible to do this, just cold water is needed right away. Because of this, the scar in the most affected area remained deeper. Then there were three months of hospitals, antibiotics and much more - they say, the doctors practically pulled me out of the world, a large percentage of my skin was affected. Parents almost divorced because of this, so much they blamed each other. As a child I was teased with the word "pleshivaya." I remember that I was worried, but with my head I understood that those who tease are just fools. Then in my youth it became difficult to appear on the beach - it seemed that everyone was looking at me.
When I was thirteen years old, my mother offered to have plastic surgery and excise the scar on her arm. She really blamed herself, she wanted her daughter to be perfect. Though I was already quite old, I thought - what if I woke up after the operation, but the scar is gone, I have a smooth and beautiful shoulder. But I woke up in a bloody dressing and with pain. As a result, keloid scar has grown even stronger and has remained red, has not turned white - this is my skin property, it is prone to scarring. The operation was not worth doing, especially at that age, but the doctors could not predict such a result. Already at a more conscious age, I went to see doctors, looked for any ways to get rid of the scar, but now I decided that it was time to stop.
Honestly, this is a very serious process, in which I live almost all my life, to accept my scar as a part of myself, as something that only makes me better and stronger. Soon a year, I began to go to a psychologist. I came there with completely different problems, but the story of a scar and rejection of myself climbed to the surface quite quickly. A psychologist and I dug up that side of me that I didn’t want to show anyone: I imagined her as a dirty ugly mountain goat with huge twisted horns and long crumpled wool. And behind this goat was a girl of thirteen years, which, after the operation at the right time, was not embraced by her mother. And then it seemed to her that the whole world had rejected her. That day I really turned upside down - tears were hard to stop. But you know, it had to go through. Then, in the psychologist's office, I was finally able to accept this girl myself. And to understand that no scar can spoil it.
Note Ed.). My head was pierced in the forehead area - as I now say, I had a third eye pierced. Actually, in order to patch the skull, I had to do a neurosurgical operation. Usually, neurosurgeons make a seam along the contour of the hair, but I became very angry and said that I was an artist and I could not get a scar in my whole forehead. Then they nobly made a seam in the middle of my head, although it was not in their practice. My dad and I tied me two small pigtails in the forehead area and another behind, and I had an operation.
When I am blonde and I wear long hair, I don’t see a scar at all. When I walk with a short haircut, as it is now, you can see it. In adolescence, I still had some kind of complexes about this, but now I’ve gotten hold of him. Still, he is with me most of my life. I do not pay attention to it, there is even some charm in it. People around you may not even notice the scars if you feel comfortable with them. Again, over time, they are becoming less visible. I am still very grateful to the receiving doctor, who sewed my face: I half cursed at him and asked me to sew my eyes carefully. It was a very pleasant young doctor, who, smiling, did everything perfectly to me.
Once, when I was filmed with my dad, director Yuri Moroz, in the movie “The Point,” I played a bald heroine - this meant her story. On the bald spot, my seam through the entire head was very clearly visible. Make-up artist Tanya Shmykova and I locked it for a long time. We carefully put the layers of latex into this striped leather, tinted it, then again applied latex so that the head was absolutely flat, like a billiard ball. It took a lot of time. But there were no more special problems with this scar. Such things, especially in the acting profession, affect perhaps only self-esteem. For the last six or seven years, I haven’t been worried about this topic at all - it’s probably good.
as every day I was taken to the dressings and the nurses tore off the bandages right from the skin. It was much more painful than boiling water. And so a keloid scar with an area of my palm was formed on my shoulder, while it was terribly thick — it gradually stretched out as I grew.
Burn for a long time became a constant topic of family conversations. Everyone was upset then, of course, terrible - the whole family, except for me. My mother scolded herself (in vain), and my grandmother promised that when I grew up, they would make me a laser polishing, because I’m a girl and I should be beautiful everywhere. I said: "When I grow up, I will tattoo my shoulder, since my skin does not feel anything!" Sensitivity returns gradually, by the way: now, touching myself on the shoulder, I at least feel something. This is interesting: one percent of my skin lives its own secret life, something happens to it.
It never occurred to me that something was wrong with me. Since the bandaging ended, the burn did not cause me any inconvenience. True, the school often asked what it was, and it was rather stupid, but I practiced wit in the best of mental strength — I said it was leprosy, a plague, or anthrax. I did not tattoo, because I realized that my burn is much steeper. It seems to me a relief map: a little bit like Africa, a little bit like North America and Mexico. And he, in my opinion, very sexy. In addition - maybe it sounds a bit strange - for me it is such a nice souvenir from childhood. Well it was and why not remember it.
hospitals. Only with age you begin to understand how in reality it was not so easy for the whole family. In 1995, I miraculously got into the list of children selected by the Friendship Foundation of Rodion Nakhapetov, and American surgeons successfully operated on me. In general, of course, this is all - a real miracle. The situation in which in 1995, close to Zelenodolsk, where I was born and lived until seventeen years old, is the team of the best cardiologists of the planet and it is I who get this “lottery ticket”, absolutely cinema. But in addition to the "wonderful" component, there was also painstaking work to rehabilitate such a child. Thanks to my parents for this and Rodion Rafailovich, of course, for the opportunity. I am sure that I myself should sometime create such a fund.
At a conscious age, you begin to understand that life has given you one more chance, which means that you should hold on to it more closely, should be stronger and constantly do more. The scar for me is like a tattoo, a constant reminder that you have to live every second, that there is no impossibility. And once again, a friend of mine, a musician from Australia, told me stories about the traditions of Australian Aborigines, who still practice scarring and drawings of ocher on their chest during initiation rites or the connection of the soul with the outside world. Upon learning that I had exactly such a scar, she was surprised and for another four hours she explained to me its uniqueness and importance.
Now I am actively buying up beautiful blouses and dresses with cleavage, and friends say it is beautiful. In my childhood I always wore t-shirts and sweaters without cutouts, but I understand why: children can sometimes be cruel. Although here I was lucky with my friends - knowing that I had a scar, no one ever bothered.
Statements in such a manner cause me bewilderment and anger: as if abdominal surgery is something pleasant and painless. Although everything ended well, it was probably the worst experience in my life. I had a difficult pregnancy, and the doctors immediately told me that, as a rule, in my case they are doing a Caesarean. But one thing is to know how everything will be, and the other is how it all happens in reality.
Such an operation rarely takes place under general anesthesia: this is usually local anesthesia, in which the lower part of the body is completely paralyzed. You, being in full consciousness, feel how the legs and the stomach gradually lose sensitivity, as the body gets out of control. You cannot move or in any way influence the situation in which the question of life and death is solved for you and your child. It seemed to me that I would go crazy with horror, and in order to somehow get distracted, I listened to the clang of instruments and a selection of Russian pop music, which was quietly playing on the radio in the operating room.
In some women, the scar is almost invisible, someone does cosmetic surgery or camouflage with the help of tattoos. My scar is low enough, few people see it, but then I see it and feel it every day. He is ugly, with some bluish tint, the upper part seems to be wider than the lower one and slightly hangs over the pubis. Probably, this is because the skin has been stretched and constricted many times. For the first couple of months, the toxicosis was so strong that I almost did not eat anything and lost ten or fifteen kilograms, I just could not swallow anything. But my body and the way it was allowed me and the child to survive. If I were a conventionally slender girl on the cover, then most likely one of us would not have coped. A scar after a cesarean is not a manifesto for me, but I don’t want to do anything with it. Yes, the scar is ugly, but it is precisely by this that it reminds me that everything in life has its price and its value.
history from childhood. In the Soviet Union, gazebos in the kindergartens in which we played made concrete to the waist. And I was a moving child, and somehow, happily running, fell and broke my head so that everything came to hospitalization. Nevertheless, my scars do not bother me at all, and I don’t see anything negative in them.
In all my life, there has not been a single case where I would have felt awkward or uncomfortable because of the scars. The scar on his forehead is amusedly associated with Harry Potter, and the one on his leg, some even find attractive. I didn’t have to accept or experience the fact of their presence - perhaps because I have had a decent amount since childhood, starting with a giant scar after appendicitis. Of course, a broken leg is pretty scary, but I find the scar left after the operation even cool. There is a common phrase that scars adorn a man: I think that they can beautify a woman too - although I understand that there are people who suffer from them.
