Monday, November 17, 2008

I call them Battle Scars

I was 16 years old when they first appeared. I gained over 30lbs in one month due to prednisone and lost almost all of it in a span of another 2 months. My body was like a baloon that got inflated and deflated. I have them all over my thighs, butt and shoulder. And because I was young and a bit low on the EQ then, I scratched whenever they itched and that made it worse.

They're stretchmarks. Battle scars from my relapses with ITP.I tried all possible creams you could think of. But they just don't work. They fade away through the years but they get bad again whenever I relapse. Recently they became very evident again. My recent relapse brought back those unsightly scars. My resident derma told me that if I wanted to I could get them lasered out. But of course that would be costly.

I used to be so conscious about it. I refused to wear shorts and swimsuits. There was a time that I even used concealer to cover them up. Then I realized, those stretchmarks, no matter how ugly they look, is the small price I had to pay so that I could live. If I didn't have them, I wouldn't be here today. So I told myself, what the heck, I'd wear whatever I want to and just live. Now whenever I look at my ugly marks, I am reminded of how I made it through life's toughest battle scarred but not broken.

And those stretchmarks, are my medals.

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