An arching scythe mark of pale pinks, shiny nudes and rippled silver casts up from my lower tummy, falling with a surgeon's delicacy inches from my right hip. A scar so glorious and sexy, I can't be told otherwise.

This is not the only scar a kidney transplant bejewels you with, either. I also have what looks like a small game of noughts and crosses just below my tummy button (from when, I still don't know - perhaps bored, the surgeons did play a quick game?) and a puckered puncture mark from my peritoneal dialysis tube. Ever since the day I woke up free I've committed fiercely to loving these gorgeous mementoes.

While innately, this hasn't been hard, dealing with others' perceptions occasionally has been. I was still in hospital - post-op and propped up on morphine - when one of the nurses, amazing though she was, became the first person to suggest that I should cover them up, (subtext: that's not cute, people aren't going to like it). Her timing was beautiful. I had finally peeled back the hideous hospital gown (why always so ugly?) to peek at what had been done when she straight away suggested I switch from bikinis to swimsuits. 'Absolutely not', I slurred, bewildered. Another nurse then told me about Bio Oil, which would reduce their appearance. Someone else then commented on how they fade over time.

Not wishing to hide them, I didn't understand these well-intentioned messages until a while later, when I went on a date and told the dude about what had happened. Well. I've never seen anyone down their drink and leave so fast in my entire LIFE. Whew.

This got me thinking about what the nurses had said; how my scars would affect peoples' perceptions of me, and in particular, my body. I, therefore, decided - partly through necessity and partly through truly believing it - that scars are sexy. While this is a truth for me, it may not necessarily be reflected in the gaze of others'. But who needs 'em?

I value, appreciate and adore my bod in a way I couldn't have conceived of before. So much so, that on looking back I recognise what could have become - and from word go was assumed to become - a negative, an insecurity, has instead become a conscious and considered gaze through which I celebrate my darling wee bod, glimmering with a stroke of pale baby pink scar tissue. *Bio Oil mic drop*