Neglecting the Wound

I pull the bandage off the right side of my torso, right above my hip hoping for the best. The attachment it has to my skin is strong. Looking back on it now I realize that I had much to learn about nurturing a wound. A mysterious wound at that, now a permanent scar to remind me of the times I guess. It has been said that every scar as a story. Well this one may lack one, which in turn be, in itself, a story.

To this moment, I can’t really tell you the cause of this wound which can be described as 4 punctures aligned to form a circle. I can’t tell you how I got it because I discovered it one hazy morning, following a 2 day drinking binge. However, I have pin pointed it down to the persist time that the injury may have occured; between 6pm Friday, after I left a friend’s dinner, and 8 am Sunday as I found myself safely in my bed. With great embarrassment and shame, I must admit that the moments in between these times are a little blurry but you have to give me credit for the great detective work. The point in this article does not lie in the things that I can’t recall; it lies in the things that I have learned.

There we are, the mysterious wound and I, like strangers sharing a booth on a passenger train, not knowing what to make of one another. I apply the anti-bacterial cloth to it like I’ve been doing it for weeks (because I have), q-tipped some polysporin to the punctures and neatly sealing a fresh bandage over to hold everything that should be there, in place. I wasn’t always this committed though. About a month ago, when the wounds first appeared, I declared them mosquito bites and left them open naively thinking that nature will run its course. A couple of days, tops, and these bites will be out of my life, I thought. Well, days turned to weeks before my friends and family really started to worry (on the account that pus and other shit was coming out of it) and here we are a month later with Dr. Me performing intricate surgery to it.

I have a scar on my left hand pinky from a cheese grater that required no pampering to heal. A faded scrap on my right elbow from a bicycle accident I had as a child took 2 weeks before it manned up and recovered with only the help of time. Come to think of it, all my little wounds have, for the most part, only needed time and a small bandage to heal. So for as long as I could remember, I’ve believed that although the aid of modern medicine will speed up the recovery of wounds, it is not needed. Your body should know how to handle these matters, no? But I guess that there is more to it than that. Time will do its thing, true, but some wounds require much more. Ignorance may numb the pain but it sure as hell will not help close a gash. Know what I’m saying? The right choices that you make regarding the wound may not help it heal but it will definitely keep it from getting worst. I let mine get worst.

So, hey. Take care of yourself. All wounds will heal, but you have more control over that than you think.