Well, originally I got my vertical lobe pierced just over 6 months ago and was extremely happy with it. Where else did I get the idea to get it pierced but BME? I even considered getting my other lobe pierced, but was more into the idea of gauging it without interference of a vertical lobe.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When It just happened Artist bobby Studio puncture body piercing Location sunshine coast, australia Anyway, happy with my piercing, loving it actually, until yesterday morning when I decided to jump out of a window, (avoiding my friend's angry mum) got my ear and piercing caught, and tore it. Now at the time I didn't realise the extent of the damage that was done. I thought I just banged my ear on a window shutter and it was bleeding a little, not the case. I was shunning the pain in front of my friends when one of them said, "hey your bar is sticking up." And as I felt the bar, it wasn't just sticking up, it nearly came all the way up, so as we're walking down the street, frantically I asked my friend whether or not the acrylic ball was still on the bottom of my lobe. The answer sent me back double time to the outside of the window frantically searching for the bottom ball of my piercing. It was a hopeless find, one being that it was transparent, two being that the patch of grass measure two by three and that even if I did find it, I wouldn't want to put it back on my pie rcing due to bacteria etc.
So as I reluctantly gave up on the search, I walked my friend to the bus and stopped of at the petrol station in the hope to get some ice for my readily swelling, bleeding ear. The attendant nicely scraped some frost from the ice-cream freezer and stuck it in a bag for me (thanks Caltex – Currimundi) and I was set for the next 15 mins until I could go home and cry to mum, oh, and go to the piercing place to get a new ball.
Mum comes and picks me up and takes me to Puncture. Bobby says it's so swollen that I could either get a longer bar put in or take it out and let it heal. I did neither, went home and had my mum (a nurse) do household repairs with saline solution and taped the top end down so the bar wouldn't ride up in my sleep.
Sleeping that night wasn't too comfortable and I can't imagine it being too comfy tonight either, but my plan was to go to work the next morning and go to Puncture to get a longer bar put in (to accommodate the swelling and to re-open the now closed bottom hole). So I get to Puncture the next day after work, which only made my ear throb more and ran into some 2002 graduates from school. They were getting their respective piercings, tragus and daith and were shocked when I showed them my ovally swollen, tender lobe. An hour later, after a random chick had her septum pierced and was congratulated by her crew of emo chicks and after my friends had their ears done, it's finally my turn.
I was a bit nervous not knowing what to expect and not knowing how far the bottom hole had closed up and whether or not it would require a bit of force to put the new bar through. Bobby explained to me that I could either enlarge the size with a taper to accommodate the acrylic balls for school, which I decided against after weighing up the pain factor, or decreasing the size to 16 gauge and having flat ends, which I'd have to hide at school. The other choice was to let it heal over and get it done again. Fuck that for a joke, so I obviously opted for the 16-gauge option. I went into the room and sat in the big, black chair and lay down. Bobby showed me the flat screws for my new bar and started to take the tape off my lobe (that was holding down the bar) and slowly slid out the bar. The good thing about a vertical lobe is that it is through lobe and you can't feel anything when you take normal earrings out of your ears and it's the exact same for this piercing. After taking the old bar out, Bobby said that the bottom ball didn't come out with the external thread, the thread actually snapped in the bar, which did not surprise me that much because I hit it fairly hard. After putting a bar in which she decided was too long, she got another one and tightened the ends, it only hurt a bit while she was cleaning it, which I was surprised with, but grateful.
After that was done she explained to me that once the torn tissue has healed again and I've finished school, I can go back to Puncture, get it tapered up to 14 gauge again and use my old bar and my remaining acrylic ball. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet but it's always an option.
One last thing that I've been told endlessly for the past two days, (apart from, 'that's what piercings will do to you' – which is a load of shit!) is, 'don't jump out of windows.'