I’ve spent the summer healing from a tunneling wound. No one wants to hear the literally gory details; your health problems are your own. I have learned this, not because anyone has been unwelcoming or unkind to me as I’ve shared my health issues (except my own children, who are supremely grossed out, and have banned the words wound and fluid from our home), but because of the way my own eyes tend to glaze over when I start reading a detailed recitation of health issues. So personal, we can go into great detail about them. But except for childbirth, they are unique enough that you have to go online to find a community of others who can resonate with your exact problem.

How many other people in the world have had scar endometriosis lumps removed this year? How many of them developed a seroma that formed a tunneling wound? How many of them carry the open bleeding place on them as they walk around, sitting down every so often when the pain of standing requires it? Do they pack the wound every night and morning with saline-saturated gauze, gasping as the spot reopens when they pull out the gauze again?

I have no idea. But however unique my own story is, it’s ridiculous to imagine that I am the only one who walks around with open wounds, however hidden they are right now. We are all wounded, walking around with various wounds in various stages of healing.  Even a scar still carries the memory of pain.