I posted a couple of these photos to Zentastic when I got home from the hospital last night, but I thought I’d post the full set here. As you know, last year I found out that I had a bone tumor in my right leg just below the knee that was starting to affect my mobility as well as having caused about twenty years of chronic pain. After the biopsy was done, I had Chino tattoo Matthew 5:30 in script above it to help me deal with it —

Matthew 5:30    And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

I find that “physicalizing the way I’m feeling” helps me to deal with things that are emotionally or intellectually upsetting to me, I think because it makes them tangible in a way that gives me symbols to think about them with, even though of course nothing has really changed. That said, I’m also a bit of a narcissit, haha, so one of the things I was really hoping was that I’d be able to get a surgical photo of this tattoo during the procedure of removing the tumor, because it was so appropriate. Anyway, the doctors were kind enough to snap a number of great photos of the procedure!

That’s an after photo; here are a few others from the procedure:

Everything seems to be healing really well by the way, although it’s just been a few days.