Behind the Scars

My scar now

Altogether, I have 14 scars. Some you can see almost immediately and others you wouldn't know they were there unless I showed you. The scars everyone can see the easiest are the two on my neck. Growing up, I was never exactly self-conscious of the scars on my neck. I think a large reason for this is because I cannot see it as easily as I see some of my other scars. I am not shy about my scars and in fact, I am proud of them. They make me unique in a great way and I am always comfortable explaining their origin when people ask me about them.

The scars on my neck are technically two separate scars. One is from my ECMO incision and one is from my tracheotomy.

ECMO Circuit Diagram

Trache Diagram

I talked about Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation(ECMO) some in my first blog post about My Journey. This is an ECMO circuit diagram. As you can see, it inserts in the neck and the hip. I have scars in both of these places from ECMO. This machine provided my body with oxygen so my lungs and heart could rest.

I had a tracheotomy done to help supply more oxygen to my lungs. This is a diagram of what a trache looks like.

Both of these areas are now numb because of these surgeries. I had a trache while I was in the hospital and I also had it for a while when I went back home. My mom would have to change my dressings and trache once a week and I was limited to the amount of activity I could do.

Me sitting up for the first time

The trache had a small hole in it and I was unable to talk unless I had a cap covering the hole. I remember in the hospital I would cover the hole with my finger and attempt to talk before I learned how to speak again. I was 8 years old when I had a trache, so what do you think I did? I gave all of my dolls and stuffed animals tracheotomies of course.

Because of everything I was attached to, I had very limited movement. I remember sitting up for the first time. My feet were bouncing up and down without my control and it really scared me. My mom and doctors called it my "happy feet", and that is what we called it from then on out so I would not be scared.

Seconds after getting my trache removed

Getting my trache removed was one of the best days of my life. They pulled it out and covered it with a band-aid, quick and easy. It closed up in about 30 minutes on its own without any stitches. I always knew I was different for having these scars, but I never looked at them as a negative thing. Scars make me unique. As I have gotten older I have fallen more in love with them. Thank you for reading!:)