The Unveiling

It had been 3 days and I hadn't dared (or cared) to check my incision. The nurses had checked on it, but I was so loopy that I didn't bother to take a peek. I was bored on day three and had a smidgen of energy so I thought I'd give it a look. At my own request I'd made my family leave. Not in a mean way, but they had their own lives and staring at me sleep in a hospital bed isn't what I wanted. I have an almost pathological need for people NOT to see me when I'm not 100%. I didn't want anyone in my delivery room, except my husband, I never let people see me cry and I especially don't like to feel like an animal at the zoo when I'm hooked up to a catheter and mumbling like a crazy homeless person. I truly appreciated the visits from family and friends, but I'm just really uncomfortable with situations such as these. I prefer being dressed, clean and have full control of both my emotions and my bodily functions when I am in the presence of others. It's like old Southern ladies with hats and gloves, I just like to be "done up proper" when entertaining. Anyway, so I was on my own for the day and figured I'd explore my battle wounds. My stomach, only 10 months previous, had expanded to the point of near explosion while housing my son and between the deflated balloon texture and the still recent C-section scar, things were already pretty dismal in the ab department. Luckily, I was not in the running for any bikini modeling jobs and belly shirts had long ago gone out of fashion. I tried to peer down my gown, but I couldn't see much. I tried to lift it from the bottom, but the effort was too exhausting. I think I napped in between, because I lost some time. I finally maneuvered a flap away from the back of gown and was able to check out the damage. Holy crap and then some. My incision was around 11 inches long with 20 gleaming silver staples and a nice, scabby patina. I was NOT expecting that. I figured the pancreas couldn't be that big and surely my two spleens didn't require a foot long exit point, so I truly was not anticipating the carnage that my eyes were seeing. My plans to be the next Hawaiian Tropics girl would have to be put on hold indefinitely. I decided that rather than be dismayed, I should come up with a good story about how it got there. I settled on a ninja attack. I was rescuing senior citizens from ninjas when I was brutally stabbed. Do ninja's stab? I should have changed it to pirates.