Monday 28 April 2008

some wounds do heal
sometime in the year i turned thirteen, tanya and i were skating around the neighbourhood in our new roller-blades when we decided to try our hand (legs?) at skating down the steep hill behind her house.

she ended up on her bum. i was less fortunate, falling on my hands and knees and skidding some distance on the rough, stony road.

i fell about six more times that year, and each time, like the first, i landed more heavily on my left knee than my right. one of the more memorable times was during a skit in english class, where i played a bear begging a hunter to spare my life and i had to fall on my knees as i did so.

inevitably, a keloid formed. it stood out on my left knee, angry and red, and i used to tell my mother mournfully as we sat in front of the tv year after year laughing at the contestants on miss singapore universe, that i would never get past the qualifying rounds. not that i actually wanted to, you understand. i was just attracted by the pretty clothes and prize money for doing what seemed like nothing.

what's more, i fell on average about once every year, and the keloid would invariably split open and form afresh, a squishy bulge which began to harden after some time as the number of times i fell a year lessened.

i thought it would never disappear, and was quite prepared to live with it - except for the time i found some silicone ointment in the medicine cupboard and applied it faithfully for a while, with no results.

this morning while i was stretching i idly looked down at my knees and realised that the keloid was practically gone. the skin on my left knee looks almost normal - there's a slight protrusion, skin-coloured, but it looks like it's going to become less obvious, given a bit more time.

remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. behold, i am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? i will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert - isaiah 43:18-19

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