Skeet Ulrich and me
Yes, I admit, I googled “skeet ulrich shirtless” last night. But no, it was not to satisfy some latent homoerotic desires for the star of Jericho. It started as a completely innocent conversation about movies and television and just progressed from there.
Somewhere along the way I read that Skeet Ulrich had open heart surgery when he was young, which means he had a sternotomy, which means he has the same scar on his chest that I do. Unfortunately his seems to have healed much nicer than mine did, which isn’t a surprise since I know mine didn’t do as well as the doctors expected. You can barely see it in that photo but its the only one I could find. And no, I will not post a photo of mine to compare.
I know plenty of seniors have sternotomies, but finding another young person who has had one is a bit like Amalthea finding a second unicorn. The nurses always said it was refreshing to give needles to someone with firm flesh on their arm. I saw someone in the university gym locker room last semester with the same distinctive scar and I had a strong instinct to say hi, but it probably would have been weird so I said nothing.
It’s definitely a small detail of a person’s life, that they have a scar on their chest. It is at most a story to tell, but one that is worn forever like a tattoo whether its an interesting one or not. But as inconsequential as that detail may be, it’s still nice to know that I’m not the only one who has it.
