Please bear with me; this is a true story, so, like all true stories (unlike fables, which are generally straightforward and to the point) it takes a meandering path, allowing the disparate but necessary elements to find their way into the timeline and create the tale as it unfolds.
Part II. The Butterfly
Late August 2013
Surgery for skin melanoma (which I have since learned is called cutaneous melanoma, meaning it starts in the skin and can spread from there) was done in in the dermatologist’s outpatient surgery center, as before. This surgery involves removing a fairly wide swath of skin tissue—the goal being to excise all of the cancerous cells by cutting out both the cancer and a “clean” margin of tissue around the melanoma.
A few days after surgery, I was allowed to remove the bandaging and wash the sutured site. Even though I’d had two previous skin melanoma surgeries, those sutures had not looked quite like this one!
What I saw at was a 2.25-inch row of puffy little bulges made by the cinching of my skin in each stitch. The suture thread was dark blue. It was thick and quite stiff, making a row of blue bands each topped by a “V” of the clipped threads, making it resemble a queue of little antennae—or the hairy spines on the back of a caterpillar. Yes! that was exactly it; it looked like I had a fat pink caterpillar with blue bands and spines sitting atop my upper not-quite-my-back, not-quite-my-shoulder.
In complaining to a friend shortly after the uncovering of this caterpillar, I said, “After all of this is over, I had damn well better have a set of butterfly wings!” In reply, she suggested with great enthusiasm that I could get a butterfly wing tattoo on my back after my skin was good and healed. Heheh. A tattoo. Riiiight.
Mid-September 2013
A mere matter of days before the caterpillar was to be dismantled and my skin would be allowed to continue healing “flat,” I received another personal call from the dermatologist. Remember what I said about that never being a good sign? Right. As it turned out, I needed a second surgery because the first margins weren’t cut wide enough, and were not entirely clear of melanoma cells.
The newer, larger cut was subsequently closed with a nearly 3-inch row of closely spaced staples, which made it look like I had a zipper in my back! I never entertained the idea of a zipper tattoo, but something about the idea of the butterfly wings tickled my mind and continued to do so until…
Mid-May 2017
My skin was fully healed (though with a substantial scar, to be sure) and I had grown to like the idea of having a tattooed butterfly there. It would be a celebration of overcoming, I decided. It would serve as the declaration of my desire and intention that the skin melanoma of 2013 was my third and final—FINAL!! (at which point I would laughingly shake my fist at the heavens) —one.
I consulted with a tattoo artist to plan the design of this butterfly and set the date to get my new tattoo.
Early June 2017
The big day came, and I was excited and a little nervous. The planned tattoo would be a largish solid piece, a bit bigger than the palm of my hand. And there was a long scar to be included in the ink. Getting a tattoo is painful. Getting a tattoo over scar tissue can be excruciating, I learned in a very immediate manner.
I won’t lie; I shed tears, moaned and groaned, gritted my teeth, and pounded my fist on the table. It was tempting to ask the tattoo artist to just stop and leave it unfinished so I could get away from that pain. But I had made for myself a declaration and an intention for this particular piece of art to live on my skin, and so I somehow endured it.
My perseverance was rewarded with a beautiful image and the literal embodiment of a meaningful series of experiences—a perfect storm of experiences, if you will, that provided me with several life lessons and Soul lessons:
notice and pay attention to experiences that are instructional and contain messages to reveal;
honor the roles of intuition and intentions;
and always seek something worthy of gratitude, even in the midst of suffering.
