Gooodbye tattoo!

[Oslo73]

I was eight when I had my first OHS. The scar was not a problem.
Then as I grew up I became more and more concious of my own apperance.
I was not at ease with it. Some kids even told me it was plain ugly.

You know how kids are, they don`t know the damage some simple words can do to a guys self asteem. I don`t want to go into all the self pitty, so I will
cut to the chase.

At 22 I had my tattoo. A big one. It took 3,5h to finish. A cobra with two tails! Can U belive it? I have never regretted, because it helped me not wanting to take my shirt of. It is almost not possible to see the scar. Very happy with the results.

In 4 days it will be in ruins. My skin heals pretty lousy so the scar will be wide. So now I will have a nice big scar AND a ruined tattoo. GREAT!

Only comfort is that I`m practically married and soon to be a dad, so I won`t have to date with my new looks. I just cross my fingers mirrors won`t be my enemy in the future like it has in the past.

Anybody else had a tattoo to hide the scar?

 

[geebee]

Often thought I would like a rose with the stem wrapped around my scar. However, I am on coumadin so that is really out of the question. Also, I have had 3 OHS so I am sure the tatoo would have been ruined unless I did it after my last one but I was too old to care then.

Not that taking my shirt off in public has ever been a temptation.

Maybe you will be lucky and the tatoo will just look a little different but still intact.

Wishing you well.

 

[Susan BAV]

...Not that taking my shirt off in public has ever been a temptation. ...

Gina - Some of your cute responses just crack me up!

Oslo - No tattoos here but I'm scarred from top to bottom, front and back, and feel like a quilt sometimes; my scars are fairly thick and tend to pucker too! But my husband, happily, doesn't mind. Beauty is more than scar deep! But I wear mostly high necklines so I don't freak anybody out.

My first really bad scar was even before my heart surgeries, when I unfortunately took a small motorcycle halfway through a barbed wire fence way out in a pasture. I was a vain little 13 year old then and the most visible scar from that debacle is [still] on my lower left cheek. I had very long hair then and for years I would pull it forward to hide the scar.

But my dad would always tell me to not be afraid of my scars; that they were just war wounds indicating survival.

Hope all goes well for you! Now you may have two cobras with two tails!

 

[Nancy]

First, save your life, then worry about the beauty of your tat. Perhaps it won't be as bad as you are thinking right now, and even if it were, there are tatoo artists out there who could figure out something to marry the two halves of your cobra. Why not start now designing an innovative addition to the tatoo?

 

[Karlynn]

Oslo - your tattoo brought to mind the story that my surgeon told me when I joked that I was going to get my scar turned into a long stemmed rose with a tattoo. He hade a man with an elaborate tattoo of tropical birds on his chest. My surgeon had a resident working with him that was going to be doing a closing for him for the first time. He handed the resident the sutures and said, "When you're done, I want to see every bird and every leaf matched up perfectly!" He said the guy about fainted, but actually did a pretty good job.

 

[SumoRunner]

Well, I have a more natural way of hiding the chest scar. I'm so hairy it's totally hidden. Had I ever gotten a tatoo, it never would have shown through either. But there is one scar that shows, the point where a fluid drainage tube exited the belly. It looks as though I have two navels. I wonder what sort of tat would be good over that? I'm thinking one of those car body fake bullet holes.

 

[AlonnolA]

My new scar is so much thinner than my old one - it looks like a long scratch. Actually my old scar is thinner than my old one - the surgeon said he purposely made the incision the entire length of the old scar even though he didn't need to, so he could make the old one thinner.

So maybe your tat will be OK!

Only thing is, now I have 2 extra belly buttons, one from each surgery. I guess I can't call it my exclamation point any more!

 

[RandyL]

Lets see that Tatoo so we can see it before the damage is done.

 

[Aussie Chris]

Since my surgery my son has been at me to get a tatoo over my scar.

His suggestion is a zipper!

One suggestion when after the surgery is don't forget the sunscreen especially on the scar. I went for a 40 minute walk on the beach, no shirt, and normally I don't think of sunscreen for that length of time, but on that new skin you sure need it.

It was my first encounter with pin strip sunburn. I felt like I had been whipped.

Cheers,

Chris