This is Levana

(bellybutton)

Levana: Ok well I was 16 and maybe starting from the month of September, I would get pains in my stomach and I was wondering what it was… then I went to the doctors because it was getting excruciating, like really bad. And they told me I had a cyst on my ovary and they were like, ‘Well it’s fine, you could live with it, you should get it removed but it’s not extreme.’ So I had an appointment for January (this was in November), and then in December it started to get really bad again. And then the eve before Christmas eve, December 23rd, I went out with my friends and um -- oh wait, I forgot something: the doctor, when I went, said ‘Don’t do handstands or anything like extreme,’ like – do you understand?

Svea: -- like, physical.

L: Yeah, and the night when I went out with my friends, I decided to do a cartwheel, so I literally did a handstand! And when I was being driven home it started to get really bad. And when I got home I started to feel really nauseous and my mom came in and asked if I was ok and I said no. She said I should try to sleep it off and the next morning go to the hospital. And when I went they said I had to get it operated on right away. So I’m just waiting to get it out in the hospital.

S: So they did the surgery right away?

L: Well I was waiting in the hospital for a while on medications, just waiting. And then I stayed over night.

S: And that was Christmas eve.

L: And then I got home Christmas day.

S: What was that like, coming home on Christmas day?

L: It was kind of weird because we usually have dinner as a family, and they’re Italian so they were all nervous, so it was embarrassing, I ruined their Christmas, kind of

S: Oh, ok…So what was your first impression of the scar?

L: I liked it because I like scars. And they told me it would go away – I had stitches and they came off…

S: Has that changed?

L: No, I’m kind of sad they’re disappearing.

S: What does this scar mean to you?

L: Just an experience in my life.

S: Do you think it says anything about you? When do you tell the story?

L: When people ask ‘have you ever had surgery’ or ‘have you ever been in a hospital.’ Should I also add the fact that they had to take out my ovary?

S: Yeah… what does that mean for you in the future?

L: They said I would be able to have children, but even if I couldn’t it wouldn’t really bother me, maybe in the future.

S: What about family?

L: Mom’s paranoid whenever there’s pain in my stomach, she freaks out like ‘I have to bring you to the hospital again…’

This is Jennifer('s friend)

I came across this story in a paper by Jennifer Armstrong, an art therapist at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, in Exhibition Brochure for Ted Meyers. I've raved about Ted Meyers' work before, but if you haven't seen it, go to www.tedmeyers.com .


"I once met a woman who had a faint, half-inch-long scar on her temple, the actual result of an unmemorable childhood accident. But early on her young memory had stepped in to create a story to make sense of the mark on her face, and she had believed for virtually her entire childhood and even young adulthood that the scar was the result of a construction crane falling on her head. When she was confronted as an adult by the quite logical argument that such a catastrophic event couldn’t be reconciled with the size and location of the scar, she asked her mother and found out that the scar-producing injury occurred when she was a toddler, when she tripped and fell on a toy. In a moment, the history of her life was significantly revised. Yet the psychological impact of the scar had a lasting effect: this person grew up with the internal sense that she was a survivor of great fortitude and luck, able to recover from the crushing impact of a crane. As an adult, her internalized identity as a survivor enabled her to go through two potentially catastrophic health crises, and recover with an almost unheard of rapidity and vigor."