I got my navel pierced on foreign soil almost two years ago. In New Zealand, actually, the town of Rotorua.. Not the best place to be with a new piercing. No swimming in thermal springs for me. Six months ago I decided it was time to pierce something in my city.
At A Glance Author spaz Contact spaz@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist John Studio Punktured I was shopping with a friend in a department store. There were large metal bins filled with socks. Some pairs had thin metal clips at the toes to make a pair. Bridget pulled some off and attached them to her nose and lips. The first one I picked up I placed directly onto the little bit of cartilage near my ear hole [I later found out its name]. I then decided to get it pierced.
Illness at the end of my most important year of school [along with not doing much homework] caused a lot of stress around results time. January 4th, results were out and I had passed. I made my way into the city and to the piercing studio that seemed the most trustworthy to me.
I pointed at the place I wanted pierced and asked how much it would hurt compared to navel piercings. The woman [she was slightly grumpy] said she could not tell me because she had only pierced her tragus. Getting my navel pierced did not hurt anyway, so I decided that It Was Time. I chose a ring rather than a bar because I was told healing would be more rapid. The studio, disappointingly, only had two kinds of jewellery, neither of which was an arrow that I had so admired on the only person I had seen with a pierced tragus.
John put a hole in my tragus and it did not hurt. It was fun. He put the ring inside the hole. When he tried to screw on the ball, it fell to my lap. He carefully found it in the fold of my skirt and placed it into blue disinfectant. He examined the ring. He dried the ball and attempted to screw it on again. He discovered that the ends of the ring were not aligned and this was the cause of our problem. Out came the pliers. Even as John forced the ends closer together, I experienced no sensation that I would describe as pain. John said it looked bloody awesome. I expressed concern about his choice of words. He changed his mind. Fuckin awesome. There was a little bit of blood. He told me not to have baths or go swimming for six weeks. I pick the best times to pierce. How lucky I am to live near no good beach, and to dislike public swimming pools, and to not be that excited about swimming in general anyway. John also instructed me to spray twice daily with Hygienic Cleansing Sp ray. It smells nice. I doubt it has the power to kill germs, though.
There were no problems for the first few weeks. Then it got infected, despite my meticulous hygiene. I started using surgical spirit. That hurts.
I was so concerned about my piercing that I returned to the studio. I was told that I was probably rejecting the ring. I asked if I could try other metal. I was told it was not an allergic reaction to the metal or else I'd have problems with the other jewellery I wear. The advice was to deal with the ugliness and buy panadol for any pain, or take the ring out. I chose to give it another chance.
I switched to hydrogen peroxide. That did less damage to my cells than the surgical spirit, while still battling against the plague of the bacteria. Apparently our cells can deal with hydrogen peroxide because we have enzymes [dehydrogenase], but bacteria and other nasties have no such mechanism. Score.
Healed? Perhaps. Up until around three weeks ago, it was not my most attractive feature. It was swollen and red. Then a friend emphasised the importance of keeping the hole and jewellery dry. I quit using the spray but continued to use hydrogen peroxide, and dried it more thoroughly than I had previously. It is looking a lot better, almost like its unpierced sister on the other side of my head.
Someone suggested that I remove the ring to clean it properly. Of course, I move the ring around to get the chemicals into the hole, but I thought it was worth a try. For around fifteen minutes, three nights in a row, I stood in the bathroom trying to unscrew the ball. It felt like it was moving, but the ball just would not budge. I have not tried for a little while because it's just too frustrating. Another friend was discussing her navel piercing, and mentioned that the ring was really difficult to remove because the ball was 'floating'. I thought that maybe my ring was similar, but I am certain that John had to turn the ball.
In the four months and.. eight days that I have had a hole in my tragus, I have had not a single drop of.. pus. No liquid stuff. There was crust but that has subsided since I improved my drying technique. I do not think that I am 100% healed, but I refuse to give up.