MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and
chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.
Near mouth, was savaged by an Alsatian when playing with some friends in the street. 5 stitches - took the doctor hours to put them in - he was worried about leaving a much worse scar.
I fell on a coffee can (off a kitchen counter, holding the can that I had pulled down from a cabinet), when I was about 3. It's usually invisible because, 1) the doctor did a phenomenal job of stiching, and 2) makeup and bangs (fringe). I've pulled back my hair, and I'm not wearing any makeup (except lipstick) here, so that it will show (and also because it would melt in about three seconds anyway).
Holy cow, taz. You win. Y'all've already seen my ankle shots from when mike9322 and I compared notes. I also had 18 stitches along my chinbone from when my hand slipped when I was playing wheelbarrow with my sister on a concrete floor. That one's barely visible - I was about 4.
My mother likes to tell the story of how, when she asked him how many stitches it took, the doctor answered, "does a seamstress count her stiches?" He really did an amazing job (it was down to the bone), so I'm very lucky.
mine's boring & bike related. see that left arm? i got doored years ago whilst working as a bike messenger. there's a matching one on the other side that you can't see. it never healed straight either.
obviously they didn't bother doing a nice cosmetic job cos you can see it from six feet away...
She has the same scar on both feet in the same location. Its from a surgery she had when she was seven years old. The surgery was to correct her ankles from a birth defect that had fused her ankle to her foot (so basically, no joint). She waddled around for seven years not being able to bend her feet, and no one noticed. Her parents just thought she was lazy. Its a bit of a sore subject for her now. But the surgery was successful and she walks like normal with minimal pain.
No pics, lucky for you, but I have an unfortunate scar on my abdomen, just below my ribcage, from a drunked idiotic attempt at scratching my (ex) girlfriend's name into my skin with a razor blade, a la Sid Vicious. Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .
No pics of my mine, but a few brief descriptions...
One thick one (about 1/2 inch wide) that is about 2 inches long on my right thigh from when I was about six and had a muscle biopsy which eventually diagnosed Malignant Hyperthermia. I used to tell curious friends that I was bitten by an alligator when I was visiting my grandparents in Florida.
Another is about 3 inches long on the front/top of my head from where a baseball bat split my head open during a bar brawl when I was in college. It was given to me by one of my coworkers who mistook me for one of the "bad guys" as we were defending the bar were we worked. The scar used to be covered when I had hair :)
Most of my scars are just lil' nicks from knives and like (mainly stemming from my high school days working at a local pizza joint), or scratches from various dogs or cats that don't show up very well. That said, my pooch has a hell of a scar on one of her ears that she got when she was still a stray, probably from a scrap she had with another dog/cat/raccoon/who knows. This pic makes it look worse than it is, but I've had her for over a year and a half and it hasn't changed at all, so I guess she'll always have it.
I don't have a camera today, but I have a big scar that runs down the side of my left index finger from the tip to the knuckle. I was stressed out and distracted while cutting some cheddar cheese in 2003 & sliced off the side of my finger instead. You know it's bad when you go to the doctor and the nurse watches you take off the bandage and then says, "Oh my God, eww!"
I thought it was going to heal fine & worked really hard to take care of it, but I scar easily. So... I'm stuck with a giant reminder of my bad kitchen technique.
I had picked up a glass jar of spaghetti sauce at the store and it just shattered in my hand. A piece of said jar sliced into my ring finger on my left hand, leaving the scar pictured. It was determined that the jar was already broken when I picked it up, most likely the stockperson putting the jar on the shelf with greater force than was really needed.
I caused a not-so-minor panic in the store because I was covered in spaghetti sauce and screaming obscenities in pain. Everyone thought I had been shot. Many cops showed up, district managers were summoned, etc etc. Good times. I also have lost almost all the feeling in my finger above the scar. Whee!
Bonus: out of focus shot of my Pink Floyd Animals jammies.
I had a girlfriend who had a wide vertical scar down her whole abdomen from several surgeries growing up, but she still wore a bikini. I so admire that. And she still looked hot.
(It's not scars that keeps me from wearing a bikini, alas.)
The most obvious one I've got (other than the cavalcade across my knees) is this one, in the crook between my ring finger and my pinkie: ≡ Click to see image ≡
It's from, believe it or not, scraping my hand across the rubber "cork" floor to save a volleyball in gym. The scrape barely bled, didn't even take off all the skin, but I got a scar anyway.
I also have one on my left temple where a friend accidentally hit me with a golf club, but I can't get a good picture of it.
Put my hand through a window several years ago. Severed radial artery, nearly bled out, talked to some very excited surgeons about computers whilst they sewed. It isn't pretty but it works OK.
≡ Click to see image ≡
Like chuckdarwin's scar, only less impressive, the one on my right wrist derives from a hand-through-a-window incident. Luckily for me, no major bloodvessels were involved.
I spent a large part of the 90s baking bagels for a living. For those of you unfamliar with the process, it involves gently sliding proofed bagels into a vat of boiling water.* If you don't do it just right, the water will splash back. Each little droplet feels like a hot needle. Most of those little round scars are from separate incidents. (I also have a lot of freckles in the summer. If you're having trouble seeing the scars, click through to my flickr page for notes.)
The long straight scar on my right arm is from working in a kitchen I wasn't familair with and accidentally bumping the inside of the oven door. Bagel ovens run at about 500 degrees. That hurt.
*This is why Noah's "bagels" really aren't bagels at all; they steam the dough.
I have a hard time photographing the one on the palm of my hand, so I'll make it a "Where's Waldo" thing and you can see if you can find it. It took 14 mattress stitches to hold all the meat together, and while it was open you could see all my tendons and nerves.
Coming late to this thread. I have a zigzag scar on my right index finger. I cut the finger off and it was sewn back on again.
And there's also this 3" white line along my wrist, caused by a cat, but which looks like a botched suicide attempt. It was horrible at the time, very deep and I had to irrigate it with stingy stuff to stop it from becoming infected. Also in this picture, you can see I have veins that used to make my junkie ex-husband almost weep with envy.
I have a scar on my breast from the surgery I had last year, but I want your credit card number before I send you pictures of that.