If I Ignore It, Will it Go Away?
(First Published on BMEzine.com, Spring, 2004)

You know, I didn't even want any more piercings. I'm happy in my life with the various piercings I have, same with tattoos. All right, I'm not being completely honest with you. I just don't want to waste the time in healing the piercings. I'm lazy. I have a full time job looking for a summer-job, and I had school and exams to stress over and worry about. Not to mention my living conditions were infested with rats (not my fault, the apartment building is totally falling apart.)

Oh, right. Hi. I'm Angela and I got my earlobes pierced on March 30, 2004. I was surfing IAM and saw on the page of "my tattoo artist" (iam. Eternalux or just called Jay) that free piercings were to be had at Passage that's up the street from where I was living at the time. I sent him a message saying I wanted to get some free piercings, and after a bit of debating to which dates were good for everyone involved, we set a date and a time.

Now everyone knows that if you can bring your own jewelry, you're golden. No need to purchase excess body jewelry at a markup (even if it is deserved... I'm a college kid!) But horrible to think where this jewelry came from. I worked for 3 weeks at a bath salt/body jewelry/gift store while they were closing. And in that time I acquired a horde of shoddy body jewelry both in the SS and titanium grades. But it's a free piercing; even with a "deep discount" on purchasing jewelry I opted to use a pair of 14 gauge blue "titanium" captive bead rings from the store. At least the rings were autoclaved before use, because I know how jewelry was sold at that store. And the thought of it disturbs me.

So I go in, and had to wait. Lesson learned here seems to be don't have a tattoo artist book your piercing appointments, they double book every time! (Okay not really, but that's what happened this time.) I didn't mind, I got to sit and talk with my would-be piercer (Karlyn the apprentice) while we waited for the piercer I had never met before to oversee the procedure.

Finally we went into the new piercing room, and I watched both piercer's don non-powdered latex gloves, which are very difficult to get out of the box and also put on, as well as "over-gloves" for opening packages and getting everything ready. We all discussed placement, I had wanted something quite high on the earlobe since my current piercings are at 5/8", there was not a lot of room left in the earlobe. It was advised that my new piercings be at least 1/4" away from my current one, to avoid any migration and merging, and what I will call fake rings were put on my ears to see how they would look overall. The fake rings were basically SS rings with no beads, closed around the ear lightly to check placement.

We also discussed aftercare, and it was suggested to use a mild soap to wash with, especially after washing my hair in the event shampoo and conditioner got into the piercings. Also salt-soaks were discussed. Overall when I told them that my most successful piercings were the ones I took care of the least, they agreed that would be the best course of action, although if I had questions I could always drop by and ask, or call.

So far I had been sitting on their bed/table. But I am quite tall as the table is also quite high, and (no offense if you read this) Karlyn is quite short. Not only that, I was slouching from lack of back support, which was also really painful. Finally the decision was made to move me into a simple folding chair in the middle of the room. I finally got to rest my back on something, and Karlyn was no longer standing on her toes to reach my earlobes. We discussed a whole lot more about the markings now that Karlyn had a better view, and even joked about Tom Brazda at Stainless Studios and how much he talks. (Go there some time. You won't leave in under two hours unless you leave mid sentence.) I would like to make note that this was my first time getting pierced at Passage. All of my piercings in the past two years have been at Stainless Studios by Dustin (until he up and left me, haha!) and this definitely made me nervous because they were new and different surrounding s, not what I'd gotten accustomed to.

Karlyn asked me how I normally get pierced. I described it as "Breath in, out, in, pierce" and she tried to follow this example. I definitely did not describe it properly, when I'd been pierced in the past at Stainless, I had been coached when to breathe in or out. Karlyn put the clamps on my right ear, and watched me breathe. I stopped breathing because I thought she would pierce but she didn't, and told me to keep going. I then kept breathing and on one particular breath out she pierced me, front through to the back. The sound was something I'd never heard before. Perhaps because the piercing was so close to the cartledge, yet being close to the opening of my ear, either way it was disturbing. She then removed the clamps, exchanged the needle for my CBR and closed the ring.

The same was repeated for my left ear. I was breathing in and out with no warning and I was definitely surprised. Instead of getting pierced front to back, like every other piercing I'd ever had in my life, I was pierced back to front. Something I'd never experienced before. My assumption is that Karlyn was not comfortable piercing left handed, and this was just easier for her, but it definitely was an odd feeling. I felt fine though, the same crunching sound was heard and the same switching the needle for jewelry happened.

We sat around a little more, talked about aftercare, the general shop and what's going on in everyone's professional life. I was even given a lollypop! And I was also given a bar of their soap to wash my piercings with. Not that I used it. I tried to be the good customer and tip Karlyn, who graciously refused and told me that the best tip would be to find other people to get pierced by her, and also get pierced by her more myself to give her the experience she needs. (Do you hear that?? Find Passage's phone number, call and make an appointment!!)

Finally I left as the shop had officially closed at least an hour before we were ready to leave, and I walked the 10 minutes home.

I did nothing to clean my piercings. I jumped in the shower, washed my hair and body and just let the water run off. I picked scabs and dried blood off the rings and my piercings with my fingernails. I turned the earrings when I was bored, most likely dragging the dried blood and any dirt through my piercings. I pulled at the rings for no reason, and it's not like I washed my hands every time before touching them. I even removed the rings a few times, scratched or rubbed off all the dried blood and just popped them back in. I believe now is a good time to mention... I did everything WRONG! But my mentality was that, I didn't really care about these piercings, and if they needed to be removed, it was no great loss and I could try again later, or just not try at all. Really though, you should take care of your piercings, I was too lazy!

The most disturbing part of the healing process was during two weeks, about a month after the piercing where there was a yellowish coloured discharge coming from both piercings. It looked something like puss, and I was worried about the possibility of an infection. It was also my exam time at school, and I believe it was stress-related (since stress really has a lot to say about healing piercings.) I still didn't use any soap other than what was in my shower, and I only attempted to rinse out my piercings more thoroughly after washing my hair. It eventually cleared up.

I can say now that 2 months after getting pierced, these earlobes are finally healed and ready to be stretched. Because let's face it, 14 gauge is tiny. I have had three piercings at 14 gauge in my life before this moment. My left helix before I knew what gauges were, my tongue web where anything bigger wouldn't be comfortable, and my labret where the piercer didn't let me choose. All but the tongue web has been stretched, with the web being torn out about 6 months after piercing it. I'm ready for the next level!

<<<Back to Inside (Opinions that Matter)