Dino Bump

Once upon a time, I had open heart surgery. When I woke up, everything hurt, especially the huge area in the middle of my chest, from the notch in my collar bone to the bottom of my breastbone where the doctors broke/ opened/ sawed through my sternum to access my heart...


When I was finally brave enough to feel my incision, I noticed that it was kind of swollen. There seemed to be a miniature ski hill right under my collarbone notch, in middle of my chest where my sternum was opened up. I didn't think much of it then, because, well, I had literally just woken up from surgery and I was still zonked out on a slew of pain killers, muscle relaxants, antibiotics, anti-coagulants, antibiotics, and...you get the point.

Dino Bump is there, but my whole chest was still swollen, so it's hard to see here

Fast forward to a week post-surgery. I was home (in record time, might I add) and healing. One night, during one of my "OMG everything is horrible and I want to cry" moments, I looked in the mirror...Mistake when you're in pain and emotionally exhausted from surgery. I noticed that my bump was still a bump. It was still there, and it definitely hadn't been there before surgery. Immediately, an image of Little Foot from A Land Before Time flashed in my head (blame it on the vi-i-i-i-codin). 

The similarities are uncanny. 

My bump looked like the bump on Little Foot's head...hence the term "dino bump". I needed to share my new frustration/ revelation with the world.

Maya: Steve. Steve. Steve. Look at my collar bone. Look at it.
Steve: Uhhh...
Maya: My sternum is bumpy and my collar bone looks crooked.
Steve: No it--
Maya: Oh. my. gosh. They put me back together wrong. They made my collarbone crooked. Oh. No.
Steve: It's not crooked. You're just standing crooked.
Maya: *death glare* My. Collarbone. Is. SO. crooked. And I HAVE A DINO BUMP.

This conversation went on for at least 10 minutes. It ended with me crying, Steve telling me to go to bed, and my sisters laughing at me and telling me I was crazy.

Dino Bump clearly visible. 

A few days later, I went to a check-up at my pediatric cardiologist's office. After checking out my sweet incision, he asked me if I had any concerns. I cut straight to the point. I took his hand, put it over my bump, and had him feel it. I asked him, "So, this little Dino Bump right here. Is it ever going to go away?" My doctor told me that the swelling was normal for a procedure such as mine, and that my "Dino Bump" (he said with a smirk) would eventually go down and I would barely notice it. I felt like that was doctor talk for "Just deal with it, it's probably not going to go away completely."

My Dino Bump hasn't completely disappeared, but it has gotten smaller and it's not nearly as noticeable. In fact, I'm not sure anyone can really tell anymore except for yours truly. Even though it took me a while to get used to this slight change in my physical appearance after surgery, I have come to love and appreciate my Dino Bump. Now I see it not as a deformity but rather as a constant reminder of what I went through and how I healed.

Today, Dino Bump not so visible. 

Dino Bumps, represent.