I’m sharing this with just a handful of you because it’s quite personal and not something for mass public. Right now It’s a hidden post on my website and only people with access to this URL can find the post so if you do want to share it, feel free but please share only with people you feel comfortable reading it.
You all know how I feel about Achilleas and Ugur and how quickly we’ve become so connected and close. If there were anything stronger than “brother,” I would use that word to explain my connection to both of them.
In my conversations about them I always say that they both— each in their own way— “saved me” during the darkest time of my life after being abandoned by my ex-husband. The details of how they “saved” me are irrelevant and very personal, but when I say Achilleas and Ugur “saved me,” or “gave me life” again, I mean it.
This past summer I wanted to “honor” these two guys in a way that I would also remember what they did for me and how they helped me. So I had their initials “tagged” like graffiti on my arm by my tattoo artist in Hania.
To most, friend tattoos like these might sound strange, even creepy to others. For me it was a choice to permanently remember not only Ugur and Achilles as people in my life but more importantly, to remember what they did for me during that dark time in my life.
Fast forward to October 4, the day of my surgery while the pre-op nurses were getting me ready. I was being washed and shaved by one while another was looking for “good veins” to insert two needles— one for antibiotics and the other for other fluids.
We joked that she couldn’t find good veins on my right arm while she tapped her fingers on my hand. I remember telling her that we always had the same problem with my mom and that I must have inherited her veins.
“Πρέπει να τις βρούμε,” she said. “Είναι οι φλέβες ζωής.”
“We have to find them, she said. “They’re your veins of life.”
By that point they put the anesthesia mask on me and I don’t remember anything else. I woke up several hours later, dazed, still alive. My left arm was covered in gauze and tape. I had a tube in my nose and an oxygen mask on my face. I didn’t pay much attention to the condition of my body and slept the remainder of the day. It wasn’t until the next day when I woke up and looked at my bruised, needled and operated-on body that I saw something that shook me.
The two needles that were in my left arm were exactly next to the two tattoos of UK (Ugur’s initials) and AB (Achilleas’ initials). The nurse, indeed, found my veins of life that were coincidentally (was it coincidental?) right at the area of my hand where these symbols of my two closest friends happened to be.
I’m now and all of the tape and needles are gone. All that remains are two small scabs where the needles were. Right by the UK and AB… My veins of life.
