#29 Scars

The story behind one of your scars.

I like how it says "one" of your scars...and how I had to think which scar I wanted to talk about. I've met quite a few people my age who don't have any scars at all, let alone enough scars to have to choose one. For a girl, I have entirely too many.

Anyway, this one was actually a freak accident (unlike most of the other ones I have that are the result of me being a dumbass.)

As some of you may know I grew up in a tiny little town tucked away in the midst of a huge tundra in northern Russia.

During Christmas and New Year's, the city would build huge ice sculptures that had lights and were used as giant ice slides for kids to play on. I'm talking 50 feet and taller. In Soviet Russia, you don't ride slide, the slide rides you.

One good afternoon, my brother and I decided to take our sleds to the sculptures and give it our best shot. He was to be the older more responsible sibling that day, and not allow a 7-year-old me to go on the slide as it was super icy, steep and fast as hell.

We won't go into details of why and how I ended up at the top of that slide, sitting on my metal sled with a huge grin on my face, ready to bob-sled my tiny body down this thing with super speeds.

There I was flying down, laughing, when a tiny piece of pebble or dirt decided to join the party and stop my sled in it's tracks causing me to go face forward into the sled. I smashed my chin on the front metal foot-rest of the sled and continued my face-ward adventure down the rest of the slide.

As if slicing the skin open on the metal wasn't enough, I decided the best way to stop at the bottom of the hill was with my entire face....on the ice, smashing my chin and completely destroying the skin, muscle and bone of my chin.

Being the "little engine that could", I sprung right up mainly, shocked and somewhat laughing. I ran my hand across my chin and looked down...I saw nothing but a blood soaked mitten. This is when the pain set in. Apparently I burst into tears and yelled pretty loud, as my mom rushed to our 5th story apartment overlooking the play area, because she thought someone was murdering her child.

My poor brother couldn't do or say a thing. He's probably not to blame since I've always been a pretty good negotiator and probably convinced him it was a good idea to go on that thing and assured him "everything would be fine." Famous last Linda words.

Living in the damn tundra, there were very few cars, and the local hospital was a 5 minute sled ride away. So there I was, bleeding (slightly less than before because it was probably near -30 Celsius outside and everything had frozen), on the same sled that tripped me, with my dad running and pulling me to the hospital. My mom and brother running behind us.

At the hospital, apparently I started bleeding again as I thawed out, so the surgeon decided to sow my shit up sans anesthesia for fear of me losing too much blood. I call bullshit, I think they just wanted me to learn my lesson.

45 minutes and 3 layers of 5 stitches each later (nerves reattached, muscle stapled and skin put back together) I was sown up, given a giant ice pack for my swollen face, and sent off home. I might add this is the exact point where I became terrified of needles. It's probably a natural fear since I watched and felt a needle enter and exit my face 15 times with excruciating pain.

I wish I could say I learned my lesson, but the very next year, I was back on that sculpture, this time ridding with my feet out to control the speed.

To this day, when temperatures drop below 50 degrees, my chin freezes and I have difficulty talking because I can't move my lower lip. And I have no feeling whatsoever where the scar is.

It's the least noticeable, but the most painful scar I have. Kudos to Dr. Kavorkian for putting my face back together so nicely.