Skin deep

Topica has threatened to delete my notify list if I didn't show some sign of life.  I didn't want to post something as inane as "I'm still here" and leave it at that, just to keep the list alive, so I thought I'd come out of hiding.

I guess it says something about how much my heart is in the online journalling thing if this is what it took for me to write another entry.

It's been over a year since I had my bout with chicken pox.  As I had feared, it left behind some nasty, permanent scars.  Reddish brown spots on my chest, stomach and back, and even worse were about a dozen pock marks, some of them deep, on my face.  I think the worst moment was when I was looking up "chicken pox pock marks" on Google and found one site describing them as "ice pick scars" (a horrid sounding but accurate description), and another describing them as disfiguring and permanent.  My doctor said little to disupte this discovery, remarking that he had rarely seen anyone scar so badly from the illness.  I guess this will make any of you adults out there who have yet to experience the joy that is chicken pox feel a little better, knowing that I'm an anomalous case.

I returned to work after an almost three week absence and tried to resume as normal a life as possible, but was obsessed with my appearance for months afterwards.  By day, I used a heavy foundation on my face to hide the scars.  By night, I tried all sorts of things that were recommended to me by both professionals and non-professionals.  Vitamin E, Retin-A, a silicone gel called Dermatix, and so on.  I had a couple of visits with a dermatologist, and decided to schedule a date with a cosmetic surgeon to remove the scars.

I don't know if all that stuff I put on my skin did any good, but as the months went by, the scars did begin to fade.  Not all the way gone, but enough that I didn't repulse myself when I looked in the mirror.  Even the pock marks on my face filled in a little, so that now there are now only about six fairly obvious ones.  As long as I don't stand directly under a halogen spotlight (yes, I've done that many times, just to see how potentially awful I can look), even I think they don't look too bad.

The surgery was scheduled for April and would have involved cutting out the scars and stitching them back together, so that there would be a fine linear scar instead of a small crater.  The linear scar could then be minimized by microdermabrasion, if necessary.  I hemmed and hawed for weeks, and finally, two weeks before the procedure was scheduled, I called to cancel it.

My poor skin had come this far on its own.  Maybe I just chickened out, knowing it would have to be "damaged" again.  But on the other hand, I had come to a point where I was finally able to say, I can live with the way I look.  Let's leave well enough alone.

And so here I am, over a year later.  I feel good enough to wear no makeup if I so choose, to wear low cut tank tops even though I have a couple of noticeable scars left on my chest.  I've been making an effort to eat better and exercise more and have lost eleven pounds since January (a modest result so far, but enough so that my clothes fit better).

The outside is improving and I'm confident that it can get better.  The inside is what I'm still struggling with.  I look in the mirror and I no longer hate what I see, but more and more I hate who I am.

Maybe in another year or so.