Infection

 By Jenna Remley

    In late March, I noticed a suspicious mole on the back of my left calf. 

    My mind immediately concluded that it must be cancerous, so in a panic I made an appointment with a dermatologist. Upon examining it he allowed that my symptoms could have been caused by other things, but to rule out anything malignant he recommended a biopsy. I fervently agreed, and less than 15 minutes later he was scooping a chunk of flesh out of my leg. 

    After waiting an agonizing five days, the doctor sent me a message saying that the mole showed no signs of cancer, and no further treatment was needed. A wave of relief washed over me at this news, but once it abated, I was left with two thoughts: 1. Well, now that I'm not constantly worrying about having skin cancer, all my background thoughts can go back to focusing on the breakup I just suffered, and 2. I guess I still have this leg wound to deal with. 

...

    When I was 23, I got my wisdom teeth removed. The procedure itself was unremarkable - unpleasant and strange, sure, but routine by oral surgery standards. I didn’t even get any fun stories about acting oddly while on pain meds. I was nursed for a few days by my mother, took painkillers and ate an altered diet, and the wounds in my mouth improved over time. 

    Then, approximately three weeks after the surgery, I went on a family trip to Montana. While there, the extraction site for my lower right wisdom tooth grew painful again, and my cheek swelled up to double its size. The wound there had become infected. We had to find an emergency dentist in a random town amid our travels, while calling the oral surgeon back in California to prescribe me antibiotics. 

    Beyond the discomfort and hassle of this situation, I also felt so frustrated - I’d followed the surgeon’s instructions exactly, cleaning the wounds every day and avoiding any foods that might irritate them. And yet, I couldn’t prevent something from going wrong. I felt tainted, unclean. 

...

    The dermatologist had instructed me to change the bandage on my biopsy site once per day, and to coat it in Vaseline to help minimize the scar. When I got the test results back, a nurse messaged me that I should keep up that routine for “another 2-4 days,” but a week later it was still very much an open wound. It wasn't getting any worse, but it also didn't seem to be changing much for the better. My thoughts spiraled around it anxiously - why wasn't it improving? What if it did get infected and, while still not being as bad as cancer, became a more significant medical issue? 

    I tended to it fastidiously. Only a few days after the biopsy, a bandage had come partially off while I was sleeping, so I woke up with the wound pressed directly against the leggings I had worn to bed. After this I began using 2x4-inch waterproof band-aids, which stuck to my skin with a ferocity akin to duct tape, reassuring me that they wouldn't come off accidentally. On the 12th day after my biopsy, as I pulled off the band-aid in the morning to change it, the adhesive ripped off the top layers of my skin along with it. It stung so badly I yelped. 

    In my fervor to protect the biopsy wound, I'd now damaged all of the skin around it - sticking a band-aid in the exact same position and carelessly tearing it off, day after day after day. A larger portion of my leg was now in pain and bleeding and needing to be bandaged. I switched to using a sterile pad held in place by medical wrap that covered my whole upper calf, to avoid any adhesive being involved and causing further injury to my delicate skin. 

    I continued my routine, changing bandaging daily, for weeks. I would re-bandage the wound(s) in the evening, and within an hour have the desire to unwrap it and double check on it, to see how much it had bled, to examine it further for any sign of infection. I knew that this was pointless, but I felt so helpless. I wanted it to be better right now, or at least to be able to do something more concrete to improve it. But healing would only come with time. As much as I hated it, I just had to leave it be, and wait, and hope. 

    This is also about my breakup, of course. 

 ...

    The heartache is so tedious and overwhelming. I want to hurry up and be better, but the unfortunate reality is that more time must pass, to allow new tissue to grow over the wound I was inflicted. Being dumped puts you in a terrible lose-lose situation: both wanting to scream your pain from the rooftops so the offending party knows how much they hurt you, while also wanting to seem entirely unaffected and not give them the satisfaction of thinking that you actually cared. 

    But I did care. Deeply. That's why this hurts so much. 

    The breakup was abrupt and unexpected, but in the actual moment of it, it didn't seem cruel. He had his reasoning - that circumstances had changed and he felt we were headed in different directions in life. He insisted that he still loved me, that it was no bad reflection on me or our relationship. And as much as I disagreed with his conclusion, I believed him at the time. 

    Then, a couple weeks later, I learned through mutual friends that he had spent at least the last two months of our relationship lying to me; that on New Year's Eve, instead of being out of town visiting family as he had told me, he had apparently been at a friend’s party, kissing someone else. 

    Oh, the knife twists, my flesh tears. 

    This information led me to question my reality, my own judgment. I was in disbelief that someone I had trusted so completely could be so needlessly cruel to me. I went over every interaction we'd had in the weeks between New Year's and the breakup, thinking of every time he'd said "I love you" or "I'm all yours" and apparently not meant it. I wondered what else he might have lied about, if he was apparently so adept at keeping me in the dark. Every kind and thoughtful gesture was questioned, every cherished memory now tainted with the possibility that he'd been abusing my trust at any point. 

    Had we parted ways honestly, the legacy of this relationship could have been good - bittersweet at its ending, sure, but I could have at least held on to the positive memories, felt grateful for the love we shared over the course of a year. Instead, I can’t think of any of the good things without them being infected by the betrayal. Maybe one day I’ll be able to compartmentalize those things, but it feels an impossible task now. 

    I thought I did everything right; I was loving and supportive, respectful and honest. But that didn't prevent me from being hurt. It didn't prevent him from mistreating me and then lying to my face for months about it. 

    My experience with my wisdom teeth gave me a heightened level of concern about infections - this anxiety reared up when I got my first piercing a couple years ago, and came back in full force with my skin biopsy. I worry that this breakup will cause a similar fear in future relationships, an instinctual urge to be more suspicious, less trusting. 

...

    The band-aid-damaged skin got a little better each day, and eventually I didn't have to wrap my whole leg anymore. The biopsy wound itself showed little difference day-to-day, but over time it improved, the way a plant grows so gradually you don't notice until one day it's bloomed. By the time two months had passed, I no longer needed a bandage at all. It’s become a scar, and while it's big now, even that will fade some eventually. I know - I've got other scars that used to be angry and red, but now can only be spotted by my trained eye, familiar with my body and the memories of how it’s been hurt. Mostly, I don’t notice them, but they're there when I look for them, when something happens to remind me of an old injury and I go seeking them out.