Spider bite

Warning: not for the faint of heart.

I got scratched by my cat, right near my eye, when I was 3 years old. Through most of my childhood, the scar was quite noticeable, even though it was just a straight, extremely narrow, line from my eye down my cheek. My mom had told me, when it happened, that we would not get stitches for it, because stitches actually would probably make the scar more noticeable. It was such a clean line, she thought stitches would leave their own, more odd looking, marks. By the time I was a teenager, most people did not notice it until I said something about it, though one lady commented that she thought I must sleep funny everynight, to have a sleep mark like that everyday. Now a days it is still there, but looks like just one of the several lines around the corner of my eye. So I like to think my mom was right. When I was 3, I don't think they had that dermaglue they used these days, on cuts like that. 

I have other wounds I never sought medical treatment for. I fell on my bike once and sprained my thumb on my left hand. That thumb still does not have the proper flexibility. 

I am thinking about this because of my spider bite. When I was a freshman in college, I had a cheap apartment out in the woods, a beautiful setting "close to nature." Raccoons and deer would frequent the backyard, and all sorts of creepy crawlies got in the house, even after we fixed the screens. Anyhow, one morning I woke up with a sore on my leg. Three days later it was a huge red welt, and two days after that, the swelling had still not gone down, and I was having trouble walking. But I did not have any medical insurance at the time, and well, I did not have a fever, so I just figured I would wait it out. I guess it took two or three weeks, but eventually, the swelling went down and then a bit after that, my leg muscle was back to normal. But it left a definite scar on my upper thigh, a dark circular bump. I suppose it looks like a mole to most people. 

Only this mole does not react well to the Blue Lagoon. The stupid thing is itching me again. 15 years later, and all of a sudden, an old wound can act up again. 

*Stephen O'Connor calls this the memory function of skin. And he says it is one of the ways in fact that we confirm our individual identity, because of the unique history written on our bodies.