My Cancer Story

Part 8 - Do's and Don't's 2 - Judging

Part 8 - Do's and Don't's 2 

There are so many young people out there,, who judge others by their outer appearance without knowing their story. It hurts their feelings. And don't think they can't hear or see you. They do. Just remember my story.

2. Judging 

In the weeks after the surgeries or after the treatments and even now, something happened to me that made me realize how superficial, naive and gullible we are. I realized that we judge other people too fast. We think we know who they are or what happened to them, but we just make things up because we think that we know the truth. But never believe that you know what happened, when you haven't heard it from the person it happened to. 

Because the surgeons had to mark where to cut my skin, they drew on it with black and blue marker. When I went to the bathroom the first time after the surgery and I saw my neck, I was shocked. There were lines starting at my collarbone up to my chin, circles, letters, dots.... It looked like someone let a child draw on my neck while I was asleep. Also I started to get bruises caused by the surgery. My whole neck was blue, green and yellow. Yellow, because of the yellow and disgusting smelling germicide that they've put all over my neck, cheeks and the upper part of my body.  

When I was allowed to leave the hospital, everyone on the street was staring at me. It looked like someone had punched me and I bet many of these people outside the hospital thought that was exactly what had happened and that that was the reason why I was in hospital.

That was the first thing I got judged for. Luckily it was only for the few minutes until we reached our car. 

Some days afterwards, the doctors removed the big patch that was over my scar. When they removed it my mom and dad gasped and said it looked like someone had cut my head off and sewed it back on. I couldn't see it because there was no mirror but I thought that it couldn't be that bad. When we reached the car and I wanted to open the door, I saw it in the refection in the car window. It was worse than I thought. It really looked like someone had cut my head off and they sewed it back on! The scar was all over the front of my neck. Although it was thin, it was very visible because of the white threads, the dried blood and the bruises.  

After a few weeks the scar was shorter, the blood and the bruises were gone, but it got bulging and it was always red. It still is now. The weeks after the surgeries I used to wear scarves all the time to cover it up, but it was summer and it looked weird and was very hot.  

I couldn't stand it anymore and thought: 'Get rid of those scarves and just don't care what they think.' But it was harder than I'd expected. Everywhere I went people started to touch their necks and whispering to whoever they were with and looking at me. In driving school, in the supermarket, in school,.... I saw and heard them every time and I think they didn't realize that they did this pretty obvious and that it hurt my feelings. I couldn't even start a conversation with someone new, because all they did was staring at my neck when I was talking to them. The only way to stop them, was touching it while they were staring, to make them realize that I was totally aware of what they were doing.  

I knew that they didn't want to ask me what the thing on my neck was or where I got my scar from, but I could read it in their expression that they really wanted to know. They were trying to figure it out by themselves and thought they knew the truth. They talked to their friends and spread their opinion. That's how rumors are made. I always wanted to shout it in their faces. To shout: 'I had cancer and that's where I got that ugly scar from!' 

Some people in school thought that I got the scar from a surgery that I had on my vocal cords and that was why I couldn't talk. Half a year ago I found out that quite a lot people thought that that was the truth. Those boys believed their own story for two years and of course they were shocked when I told them what really happened.  

That's how gullible we are. You just have to start a rumor and everyone believes it. 

That touch-neck-whisper-and-look-at-me-thing still happens to me and I hate it. It makes you feel uncomfortable and like a weirdo. When one person starts to stare many others join and that makes it worse. 

It doesn't happen that often anymore, but some people still do it. 

I started to stop judging people by their outer appearance, because you can't do that. You don't know their story, what they've done or what they've been through.  

I only build up an opinion about them after I know their personality, their opinions on different things and their story. Because that is, what people really ARE. Outer appearance is nothing you can judge a person for, except it matches with his or her story.

Please don't be one of the people who judge before they think.

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