At A Glance Author Ophelia Contact ophelia_221@hotmail.com IAM *Ophelia* When A week ago Artist Steve W. Studio KG's Location Ohio For my birthday, John told me he would buy me a piercing or two of my choice. I had never gotten any type of ear mod except doing some minor stretching, so I chose a vertical tragus. Decently rare and it would be an interesting experience to have my first surface piercing. I went to visit KG's to discuss if I even had enough nubbin' of a tragus area. As it turns out, I had a very little area to work with and it came to a kind of lump. We decided that he felt confident enough to give it a shot, this would be his and the shop overall's first surface tragus. Steve and Kathy, his wife, both love to get out of the common eyebrow-tongue-bellybutton rut to experiment. Both actually do a lot of this experimentation on themselves. They say it gives them a better foundation on which to instruct others as far as what works and what doesn't.
This piercing was planned to avoid all cartilage and lay directly under the skin. We debated over gauge, 16 or 14, and decided on a 16 so as not to put extra weight onto an already delicate piercing. We discussed aftercare, signed the usual papers and initialed the usual dotted lines,
All that settled, off we went to the procedure room. KG's has these really unique pictures on their walls of commonplace items like baby bottle nipples, oranges, work boots, and toys with body jewelry in them. (Makes for nice eye candy during the nervous moments.) The usual cleaning commenced and we began placement. At first, I thought the placement was a bit high but it always changes slightly when you see the jewelry in place. With that settled, I lay down and got myself prepared. Steve had planned on using a 16-gauge needle and an 18-gauge taper, and then decided there would really be no need for the taper. I turned my head over for the needle work. Ironically, I was really expecting more pain than there actually was. There was the usual stinging sensation just a tiny bit emphasized. Okay, quite emphasized, but not as much as I was expecting! I made this strange noise that actually shocked myself, it was obviously a new area of experimentation for myself! I would describ e the sound as painfully bad sex.
Once the needle was placed, I turned my head further so Steve could put the ball on the bottom end of the curved barbell. All this time John had been holding the camera and never taken a single picture....grrrrr. I guess it wasn't a really big deal; at least we could get a just-done fresh picture. (Not half as cool as corked needle procedure picture though!) Steve stepped back to have a look before I got to the mirror, "That's f*kin beautiful.." he said, making me even more glad I agreed to go through with this! As I looked in the mirror, I noticed that it appeared bigger than I had been counting on, but it wasn't a bad thing. We all went back into the lobby to show me off. A reporter with the local newspaper happened to be in the lobby talking to a few of the employees about an article he was working on regarding modification. He interviewed me and they all made me feel one-of-a-kind since I was a first for the shop. They took pictures for portfolios and gave me all my after care and accessories for free for 'letting them experiment'. I paid, tipped, and discussed when I would come back for a check up. He said he wanted to watch it carefully, doing everything possible to make this piercing last.
On my way out, I realized how cold new body jewelry on exposed parts could be! It was raining and the wind was howling! My other exposed mods were at least a year old, so the feeling had been dormant till now. Afterwards, we went to the mall. As we were standing in line waiting to buy a CD, I realized I'd left my papers back at the shop on the counter! I called Steve and asked him to put them up for me. He had found them right after he saw the car drive away.
After I got home, I cleaned it again with Dial soap. The area was kind of hard to clean behind, especially so soon. After a couple of days it began to heal, creating
the universal sign of a healing piercing—itching. The crusties didn't begin until that Monday, two days after the procedure. Slow at first but guaranteed to be massive later. . I had habitually hit it with the telephone for the first few days, and still do causing a little unnecessary trauma, but nothing compared to what happens to every new piercing. Common sense practices are also a must. Learn to sleep on the other side of your head, keep your hair away (I've become a bit partial to having a floppy ponytail lately!), and watch your shampoo drippage. Overall, I think things will be okay and I plan to get the right one in about 2 weeks.