Browsing Tag

scar

Guest Posts, The Body

Topography of a Scar

March 15, 2017
biopsy

By Krista Varela Posell

For four years, I’ve had a wound that won’t heal. A lesion is the technical term, according to Google.

It’s a dark spot on my right forearm, smaller than a dime. It could be just a mole. That’s what it looks like anyway.

But every few months, the skin around the spot will get dry and bubble up, almost like a blister. I try not to pick at it, but I can’t help it. Each time I do, I hope that there will finally be a pale white scar underneath so that I can just forget about it and go on with my life. Instead, picking at it just opens up another wound, like a door that leads to another door in some kind of eternal dream. There’s no bleeding, but the new skin underneath is sensitive, a deep rose color, and the spot scabs over. Then eventually the thin scab falls off, but the small dark spot is still there. Moles don’t do that, do they?

I don’t remember exactly when it started. I just remember looking down at my arm one day, perhaps it was in the car or in the shower, and I thought, that spot has been there a while. Weeks? Months maybe?

***

Soon after, I went to a dermatologist. Dr. Google had scared me enough into getting checked out. The doctor told me to stop picking at it and gave me a steroid cream to put on it. Come back if it doesn’t work, he said.

It didn’t work. The small dark spot still lingered, and the skin kept blistering. Continue Reading…

cancer, Dear Life., Guest Posts

Dear Life: How Do I Knock Down The Walls Cancer Has Built Around Me?

November 9, 2014

beauty-hunting-jen-logo-black

By Joules Evans.

Welcome to Dear Life: An Unconventional Advice Column. Your questions get sent to various authors from around the world to answer. Different writers offer their input when it comes to navigating through life’s messiness. We are “making messy okay.” Today’s question is answered by Joules Evans, author of Shaken, Not Stirred. A Chemo Cocktail.

Have a question for us? Need some guidance? Click here. Please address it as if you are speaking to a person rather than life or the universe. Need help navigating through life’s messiness? Write to us!

 

Dear Life,

I’m 32 now – 30 & 31 were filled with having double mastectomy, painful reconstruction, chemo and radiation. I’m starting heal my mind, to get back into the swing of life and letting myself look at possibilities I haven’t in years – seizing the day, romantic possibilities.

I like a boy – it’s crazy, it’s been a long time. How do I knock these fucking walls down and start acknowledging I do deserve something great in my life. My body is literally what is left of a battlefield. I look at myself in the mirror and feel so broken and impossible to love. I worry so much I will open up to this guy I will be completely and utterly rejected.. and even more broken than I started out. Help.

Love & light,
BC Survivor

Continue Reading…

Beating Fear with a Stick, cancer, courage, Free Stuff, Guest Posts

Cancer Is a Bitch. But Wait! There’s Good News Too.

August 21, 2014

Shaken Not Stirred: A Chemo Cocktail. A Comedy About My Tragedy. By Joules Evans. (hint: good news follows.)

Hi beloveds, Jen Pastiloff here. I’m the founder of The Manifest-Station. There’s a lot going on here with us trying to get the new site launched (eek! Thanks Carla White) but…it is very important to me that I get this post up asap as my dear friend Joules Evans wrote it. I met Joules when she drove from Ohio to Massachusetts to attend my Kripalu retreat last February.  (Yes, I am doing it again and it’s filling up fast!) Anyway, we have become buds, and, truth be told, I am obsessed with her and her book Shaken Not Stirred.. A Chemo Cocktail. The kindle version is FREE TODAY and tomorrow to celebrate 6 years aka 2190 fucking awesome days since hearing that damn word. each and every one a GIFT. even the hard ones.<< Joules words. That is the good news. To celebrate she made her book free for two days. Please get it and take the time to read what is below. Have your mind blown. Seriously guys, her book is moving and funny and divine.  I love this woman to the end of the earth and back. This post is an excerpt of her book. Please get it. And get it for people. And spread the word. And fuck cancer!

Continue Reading…