Your little butterfly continues to be a medical mystery...

It started during Stampede 2005. I had decided that I was going to go and do what I love best ... dance my little toes purple. So I curled my hair up, threw on my western attire and headed down my stairs. It was at this point that it became very clear that my footwear was simply not going to do. If I was going to attract all the cute cowboys that I have always dreamed of I was going to need some real cowboy boots. And as she often does, Kirst came to the rescue and lent me her fancy, what appeared to be comfortable and sassy boots. I joined up with my girlfriend Carrie and the old work gang who know how to do stampede and always have VIP tickets to all the venues falling out of their pockets. Ahh the life of a broker! And let me tell you I danced and danced and danced ... eventually on the stage at the Whiskey. And I did not feel a thing in those fabulous sassy little boots. And after taking the train home with a fabulously sweet ausie I found my way home and exhausted sat on the stairs at Linda's and reefed off those boots. And what I discovered was not pretty. Those sassy little boots turned out to be the boots of a torture-queen as my one sad left foot was blistered and how. Let me tell you at this point about my sad foot. When I was six and had my first softball tumor removed from my little spine the surgeons took a chunk of one of my nerves. This nerve was the one that yelled all the way down to my little foot to pick up and move. And from that point forward my little left foot has had to fight its way into each step that I take. For the most part people do not notice unless I am wearing flip flops or tired in which case you hear only a flip and no flop ... in fact the whole sequence lacks both the flip and the flop and sounds more like a splat. And so once again I began to nurse my little foot ... but this time it would not heal. I cleaned and bandaged, loved and threatened ... but to no success. And even after getting the special blister healing bandages ... I was left with scars. Okay I thought ... no big deal they are feet right and if I ever decide to be a foot model I will get them lazered, the scars not my feet you silly kids. But it did not end there. The wound on my elbow from wrestling my camera away from my friend Chad scared ... and then there was the Christmas tree scratch three inches long on my forearm and most upsetting the dime on the back of my hand from glue gunning my chandelier while I was manic, and and and get this one, a scar on my hip bone from my jeans rubbing! It was at this point that I decided my healers must be busted and that I should ask the professionals how one goes about healing ones healers. And months later I got into see the dermatologist. And do you know what her expertise did for me? NOT one healing thing. Instead she once again left me feeling like a medical mystery. "Well that is weird... I have never heard of that. Usually people scar less as they age. Hmmmm, this just started?" "Yes, about a year and a half ago" "Well there is really nothing I can do for you it sounds like you already do everything you can to prevent scaring ... sorry"
And so I am left with this dilemma. Do I live the life of a bubble-girl avoiding possible wound making activities ... which for me is all of life, as I am a Klutz. Or do I just accept that I will inevitably be covered by scars by the time I die and that instead of a scrapbook of the stories of my life ... my body will tell my story ... my scars will be the punch-outs and stickers that detail and accentuate the experiences that I live. Aside from hubba bubba bubbles, and bubbles made out of soap floating in the sky on a summers day ... I think that I will stay away from the bubble life. And so I say bring on the scars ... bring on the adventures.
I do wonder though how my heart plays into all of this. I have been fighting so hard to find healing for it. Are the healers that work on my heart in need of healing too? Is my heart covered in scars? I think it is. I don't think that I will ever be able to go back to the pre-husband-walking-out-one-me, radiationized, manic Heather. But although there are moments when I don't like me, or think that I could do better as a friend, or a sister, daughter, counsellor ... I am proud of my heart. It is a resilient little heart, and those scars also tell many stories ... stories of overcoming, stories of choosing to love and live regardless of the risk and the pain.
And so we will accept my scars, inside and out. We will accept them by giving them meaning and by doing that giving them power.