People Tell Us the Stories Behind Their Most Gruesome Scars

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany.

Martin Rost had planned on finishing his photo project Narben ("Scars") in 40 days, but he missed his own deadline. "I just miscalculated," he says. "On day thirty-nine, I realized that it was already day forty-three." Instead, he finished it in exactly 100 days.

Rost skates, so he has a couple of scars himself. "I used to see a scar and mostly just want to hear the cool story behind it, but when someone tells you she's had twenty-nine operations over the course of her life, it becomes way more than just an interesting story," he says.

Rost's project is about telling the story behind a scar, whether it's from a pub fight or a life saving operation. Below are some photos from the project, followed by edited translations of the stories behind the scars.

"In the town where I grew up, there was a fleeting trend—or maybe not so fleeting—to buy ice spray in the drugstore, spray it in a bag, and inhale from the bag. You'd get so fucking high from huffing the fumes that you had no idea what was going on. I was so high that I got on my skateboard and made it about two feet before I crashed. I landed right with my mouth on the board."

"Well, on Thursday, I went back to the clinic with my ex, who luckily had time to come along because he didn't have to work. When the doctor came in, he sat down, and I'll never forget this—doctors really have to work on their ability to communicate with their patients—he sat down, dropped his papers on the table, and said: 'So, yeah, you have cancer. So…' He didn't say anything before that, or after. Just dry and to the point: 'You have cancer.'

"The doctor examined my breast again. I always try to make difficult situations a little easier with a bit of dark humor, so while he was touching my breast—no doubt thinking about how he would mess around in there—I joked that it would be practical if the lump were near my nipple so he could reach it more easily, so he wouldn't have to cut too deep, and it wouldn't be too noticeable afterward.

"He looked at me flabbergasted, like I was some kind of idiot, and said: 'Yeah, no, we have to get rid of the nipple.' He probably tells women they have cancer and that something needs to be cut off twenty times day, but still, he could have said more than just 'the nipple has to go.' I was only thirty-nine at the time."

From Rost's notes: "A fist fight. In front of a club. Defended ex-girlfriend. The guy had a big head."

From Rost's notes: "Oncoming traffic (car) cut a corner. Attempt to get out of the way failed. Collision."

"Other people pay money to get branded. I just burnt myself roasting potatoes."

"It started with stomach pain when I was pretty young. Nobody knew where it came from, so when I was thirteen I had a small operation to see what was wrong. They noticed that I had small growths that must have been there since birth; those growths made my intestines and everything stick together. That's what caused the pain, but it wouldn't get better, it just got worse and worse. And then I had more operations when I was fourteen or fifteen, and when I was 16, they realized that I had endometriosis.

"Endometriosis is like a wild splattering of tissue outside the womb that behaves like the lining of your womb. When I was sixteen—twenty-eight years ago—they had basically just discovered the disease. In any case, all that tissue develops just as actual tissue in the womb does during a cycle, and when your period starts, the blood doesn't just come from your uterus, but also from all that tissue outside the womb. So, for me, it bleeds wherever the tissue has spread—my intestines, bladder, urethra. Back then, they tried to stop it with hormones that made the body think you're pregnant."

From Rost's notes: "Don't want to talk about it."

Benjamin: I can ask you the same thing I asked you earlier: whether you want to hear some bullshit story, or the real story.

Rost: The real story.

Benjamin: On the April 6, 2014, I had an epileptic seizure at home, so they took me to hospital. I had my second epileptic attack there. They took an x-ray and realized I had a tumor the size of a tennis ball in my brain. Ten days later, they put me under the knife and pulled this tumor out of my brain. Now I have a checkup every three months to get a scan and talk to the neurologist. I'll probably die at some point because of it.

Rost: Wow, that's heavy. What's the prognosis?

Benjamin: It's not too rosy. There are tumors that grow fast, and some that grow slow. Some are benign, and some aren't. I'm right in the middle.

Rost: How do you deal with it?

Benjamin: This kind of shit can happen to anyone. I can cross the street and get hit by a car. That doesn't mean you hide inside. Fate's a bitch. I think I'm one of the people who deals with it relatively well. It doesn't bother me all that much. It doesn't keep me from doing anything. I have to go to ergotherapy after this, so I can feel things better. I'm happy it happened to me and not to some idiot who frames his X-rays. That's why.

Rost: So they can't cut it out again?

Benjamin: Well, they don't know where it may have spread. I could have done chemotherapy, but my oncologist said I'm young, and my immune system can also take care of it. I went for a second opinion in Göttingen, and they would have done radiation immediately. So I read up on it, and the thing is: If they do radiation, chances are they kill the stuff around it as well, and it's close to my language center. So there's just too much risk there.

Rost: It's impressive that you're so positive about it.

Benjamin: Of course! If I were to think negatively, I would be ruining my own life. That wouldn't help me at all. So I live my life as if nothing happened. Why shouldn't I meet a girl and have children? There's a ten percent chance I survive this shit—why shouldn't I be part of that ten percent?

From Rost's notes: "I had a punctured lung when I was born and almost suffocated. They stuck some tubes in so I could breath."

Rost: I'm making a book about scars, and I'd like to know how you got yours.

Grandma: Oh, heart valves. Two new heart valves—I had an aneurysm. And I have something down here on my leg.

Rost: Was it part of the same operation?

Grandma: I don't think it happened on the same day, because I only noticed it when your mummy came to visit me in hospital—that's when I noticed that I had a scar. I think they had to get back in later. If you must know, I first had to swallow a probe, like a gastroscopy, but this one just went to the heart. I had to swallow that, and then they noticed the aneurysm, which had grown—it was almost two inches. The doctor said it had almost ruptured, and everything would have been over if that had happened. I didn't even notice I was in the operating room, but they gave me anesthesia, and I came to three or four weeks later.

From Rost's notes: "Shotgunning a beer… headbanging."