The Two Kinds of Decay

Scars

For years I liked thinking of the ways I would erase all traces of the disease.

First I would stop taking the steroids.

Then I would have someone unclasp the impossible clasp of my MedicAlert bracelet.

Then I would go to physical therapy every day and my muscles would grow, and my heart and lungs would strengthen, and the fat deposits in my face and on my upper back would melt away, and I would run three miles along the Charles River, which was what I did at least twice a week during the month before the diagnosis.

I would apply expensive creams that would dry up the steroid acne.

I would have my teeth bleached of their tetracycline stains.

And so on.

Finally I would have plastic surgery for the thirty scars on my chest from the four central lines. I ruminated on that surgery obsessively. It was the last thing! The last thing, and then all evidence of the disease would be gone forever. No one, not even I, would be able to tell I’d been so sick.

I stared at the scars in mirrors. I could point to the four large ones without a mirror, without even looking down. I could practically feel them on me.

Once the disease went into its most recent remission, the one that’s still going on, I got fit again, just as I’d planned.

In 1996, I’d given all of my scoop-necked tops to my roommate, as it would have been rude to walk around with a big wound and a couple of tubes flopping around, scaring everyone.

For years after the line was out, I didn’t wear anything that exposed the scars.

But now that I look quite healthy, I like exposing them, and I don’t want the plastic surgery anymore.