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Leslie Bentley -- Leslie: When I was 26 years old, ummm, let’s see, I’m trying to think of where best to begin this story. On the day that I was getting married, at the justice of the peace, we had an appointment with the doctor. The doctor said, you need to come in. I can’t talk to you over the phone. My soon-to-be husband and I ended up in the doctor’s office having him tell me, "you have cancer and you’re going to have to have a hysterectomy and you’ll never be able to have children," and the doctor was pretty sad, and I was pretty matter-of-fact and was like "O.K., what’s the next thing?" So later that day I went and got married and celebrated, and two weeks later I was in the hospital and had a full hysterectomy and full lymphatomy, and it took a long, long, time to recover. Almost a year later to the day, I had a bowel adhesion that was caused by the scar tissue inside from the surgery, and they cut open in the same place so it’s kind of like a double scar. It was pretty life-threatening. Bowel adhesions are pretty dangerous. But… I survived and my husband left. I don’t think he could take all of that, and he wanted to have his own children, and so I ran away to Brazil for six weeks. I ran away from my life for six weeks, but I was in graduate school at the time getting my PhD. I’m not sure when--maybe around the year 2000--I got the piercing and it was a kind of a celebration thing. I think piercings are real beautiful and that’s where I wanted it. --"What did you do in Brazil?” Leslie: “Um, well it was under the guise of a kind of internship that I go and work with this theater company down there but really I just wanted to just run away from my life and it was really amazing. It was the most wonderful thing that happened to me. It’s a beautiful culture, the people are so warm and open, and particularly if you are attempting to speak Portuguese--attempting to speak their language--they are just the warmest people. For the first time in years, I wore a bikini on the beach because everyone was, you know, it didn’t matter what size or shape you were so I exposed my belly to the sun. One thing about scars, I kinda see them as a borderline, like a limiting space between two different worlds. It's strange how they change and they never quite heal.