Celebrating my Scars

April 24, 2013
By: Miriam Sultan

When you first meet me, I hope you’ll notice my smile.

A sense of peace in my eyes.

My genuine interest in your story.

But if you look closely, you’ll see them.

Behind the bravado and the charm, behind the positivity and the strength, behind the easy laughter and the warm embrace, remain the scars that cancer leaves behind.

They are like echoes of a bad dream, entrenched as deeply in my heart as they are in my skin.

For me, exercise has been as much about healing my scarred spirit as it’s been about healing my body, about silencing the doubts in my soul as my body conquers one feat, and then another. And so, after an extended break from the gym for the Passover holiday, I was anxious to lace up my sneakers again, even as I worried that I’d lost my momentum, my edge.

What if, this time, my body would resist?

What if I could not regain the strength I had only weeks ago?

After only a few minutes, though, I came alive to the click-clack rhythm, the whir and hum, the burning muscles, and the sweet adrenaline high I had come to savor at the Hope and Cope gym.

My doubts were fading.

But then, too quickly, a familiar feeling took over my body – I felt like I was going to faint.

At first I fought it: I ran harder, I breathed harder, I focused harder.

But the blackness was still coming.

I had been here before, and I knew what I needed to do.

Beneath the din of the machines, I slowly repeated, “I need help, I need help.”

Though a volunteer standing nearby rushed to my side, I couldn’t tell her what I needed. Instead, I focused every moment of consciousness on getting myself to the floor and raising my feet. In slow motion, in a heavy fog, I took off my headphones and eased myself out of the seated elliptical machine.

And then my world went black.

As I faded in and out, I kept telling the volunteer not to panic, but she couldn’t hear me.

I kept telling everyone that I was okay, I was fine, but no one could hear me.

I then heard Andrea, an exercise physiologist, calling my name as she lifted my feet.

She took control. I needed that.

But I also wanted her to go away. I wanted everyone to go away. I wanted to get up and pretend everything was fine, to rustle up that bravado I have clung to for so long, to get everyone around me to laugh with relief as I went back to my routine.

Back to normal.

It wasn’t that easy. When I had regained some strength, I insisted on continuing my workout, despite everyone around me cautioning me to take it easy. With each step I took, I reminded myself to ignore the worried glances, the unsolicited advice, the volunteer who followed my every move with obvious unease.

They meant well. All of them.

But every time I felt their eyes on me, they were yanking back my carefully constructed façade.

To reveal every one of my scars.

My face was burning. I felt embarrassed. I wanted to hide.

I felt anxious – had I regressed?

I felt guilty – I had caused a commotion and a sense of panic.

I felt sad – my body had let me down.

Or had it? Wasn’t my body forcing me to go into a horizontal position because this is what I needed to get my blood pumping back to my heart?

My body had done exactly what it should have done. It saved my life.

I felt grateful, proud. So why was I so ashamed?

Even as I fought tears, I felt myself laugh.

It was so hard to make sense of it all.

My body has been so forgiving.

It has been ravaged by pokes.

It has been criticized for not working the way other people’s bodies do.

It has been pushed harder, it has overcome more than most.

That’s what my scars, both visible and invisible, tell me every day.

My scars are proof that I survived, that I continue to survive.

So why am I so desperate to keep them hidden? Why don’t I want anyone to see them – to see me?

In Jewish tradition, months follow the lunar calendar, and the first of the month is celebrated at the point in the lunar cycle when the moon is not visible in the sky. That has always seemed strange to me. Shouldn’t we celebrate when the full moon, in all its glowing glory, lights up the sky, instead of when the night sky is dark and ominous, when the moon is hidden from sight?

I don’t claim to understand G-d’s ways, but I have come to see the lunar cycle as my own guidebook. In times when there is light, it’s easy to celebrate. In dark times, it takes more introspection to recognize the good we have, to count all the reasons we have to rejoice.

So we do the hard work in the darkness, digging deep in our reservoirs of strength, of blessings, celebrating even when it’s difficult – enabling us to enjoy the bright times even more.

I write this blog only a few days after celebrating Rosh Chodesh, the Jewish celebration of the first of the month. This day reminded me that we earn our scars during the dark times, but we must carry them into the light. Where they can be seen – where they should be seen.

For all cancer survivors, the battles our bodies continue to fight, our fears of recurrence, our discomfort in being different, our worries about our future – these are our scars.

They stand as a testament to our journey. They remind us of how far we’ve come and how much more fight we still have inside us.

And they deserve to be recognized.

So now, I am opening my heart. I want you to see the real me, scars and all.

My scars are beautiful, the very things that keep me alive, and I refuse to keep them hidden.

Take a look, ask me how I am doing, catch me when I fall, and cheer for me when I get right back up, and I will not be ashamed.

Instead, I lay my scars bare, and then I celebrate.