A few weeks ago I wrote about a terrible scalpelling experience I had by Doug at Modern Tribalism.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon IAM elibzab When It just happened Artist John Joyce Studio Scarab Body Arts Location Syracuse, NY This is the second installment of this tragic saga, detailing the procedure designed to re-make my beloved lobes.
Some background: The goal was to scalpel my ears back to 1/2inch from probably a little less than 0g. In the days after the procedure my right ear bled profusely and I noticed the plug was sitting parallel to the floor as opposed to flush with the lobe itself, which I thought was strange. I called Doug, who told me that it was normal.
About a week later I decided there was definitely something wrong, and decided to get a second opinion. I went to John of Scarab Body Arts, who I have known for some time. He gave me a smaller plug and told me to come back in a week. After two weeks of coming back for check-ups, it was time to re-asses the situation. When he took the plug out, we saw that what he thought was a blow-out was actually THE ORIGINAL HOLE which Doug had completely missed and was now forming the bottom back of my earlobe.
After making this grim diagnosis, John explained to me what would need to be done to remedy the situation. First I would spend about two more weeks doing salt soaks and hot compresses, then I spent about two more weeks doing just hot compresses and the second week of that I did some olive oil rubs for good measure. All of this was to simply aid in the breaking down of scar tissue. After these four weeks, he would need to effectively cut out the original hole.
Which is what happened on Tuesday.
I was pretty nervous, as he had outlined the procedure already for me as three cuts to simply remove the "extra" skin and then a healing period and even more reshaping via cutting or a cautery tool. Now, I am a pretty big baby and I always psych myself out so this seemed awful. So I went in a little earlier that day than we had talked about and hung around his shop for awhile, as I sometimes do.
John's studio is absolutely amazing. It is really clean and comfortable, with a little sitting room and some fish and NO FLASH on the walls, which just adds to the clean professional feeling. There is no way you could walk into Scarab and feel like it is dirty or trashy in any way. John himself is also very nice and professional and willing to answer any question and offer any information he can, and his shop and his attitude combined add up to one of the best experiences you could ask for.
He dealt with a few other clients before he went into the awesome room he uses for procedures and started his cleaning ritual I've seen him do many times. Then I saw he had laid out a frightening amount of stuff including gauze and clamps and a scalpel. I knew it was my time.
He asked me to lay down and started prepping my ear. After poking around a bit, he explained that the hole was really much bigger than he had imagined and he would be able to make only two cuts as he was sure the blade would fit through without much resistance. (Really, if it's big enough to fit a blade through after weeks of being squashed and intentionally shrunk, how do you miss it in the first place!?)
He is always very professional and walked me through every step of what he was doing, telling me exactly what was happening and what I could expect to feel. As he was about to make the first cut he told me it was going to be very quick and as he started told me to "breathe through it", which I now understand to be the most calming thing to hear, ever. I really didn't feel anything, and he immediately remarked that he could not have asked for the cut to be better.
The next cut was going to be more difficult, and he adjusted and re-adjusted the clamps (which hurt) until he was finally satisfied. The second cut was also not that bad at all, despite a bit of "shaving" of skin that he did to minimize the need for reshaping.
After putting in a bigger plug he declared himself a genius and told me that if it healed well, there would be no need for any reshaping. It wasn't bleeding a whole lot (although my reference points are obviously skewed) but it wasn't really clotting a whole lot either, so he decided to use some terribly foul chemical cautery stuff. Which hurt more than anything, and was incredibly strange feeling.
Two nights and one shower (the doom of all delicate scabs everywhere) later, there is still no significant bleeding to speak of, and I have complete and absolute faith in John Joyce's skills and will probably never let anyone else ever work on me again.