Last week, I posted this image:
Earlier in the week, I worked on a powerpoint deck that included this image:
Both these photos can make me cry.
Let me explain.
The headshot is of me in 2015, shortly after having my thyroid removed. I’m wearing a wig because that was back in the days when I believed my hair would come back. The scarf covers the scar that stretched from the base of my neck almost up to my ear.
I look at this picture and see me smiling, eyes bright, and think, “You are one tough cookie.”
The top photo is the headboard of my bed, a Stickley spindle, interwoven with scarves. Most of the scarves were gifts from friends. My friend who picked me up from the hospital, who saw me in all my blue-gowned, drugged, and naked-necked glory, reached out to my friends and said, “Send her scarves. She’s going to need scarves.”
Because Dr. Katie Heiden is one of the best thyroid surgeons in the country, and because her stitching work is so excellent that residents in the teaching hospital stopped by my bed asking if they could see, and because I was meticulous about my post-op wound care, you can hardly see the scar.
But there was a time when you could. A time when I needed scarves and was given so many.
.
PS: If you look closely, you can find the scarf from my headshot woven into the headboard.
Chewing the Cud of Good
Thankful for love.