I've wanted an orbital in my left ear cartilage for some time now, so the last week of May 2004 when I was home from university and got my first paycheque from my summer job, I finally had my opportunity. It was done in several installments, but I'm putting them all together here.
At A Glance Author Elaine Contact Elaine@bme.anon IAM Elaine When A year ago Artist Tom Brazda Studio Stainless Studios Location Toronto, ON May 30, 2004
My brother had a baseball game in Toronto (I live in Mississauga), so I decided to get the ear done and meet up with a friend after. I went along for the first game, then headed downtown to Stainless Studios. I was told Tom could fit me in at 5:30 – half an hour after I was supposed to meet my friend. Gave her a call and she said that's fine, we'll meet whenever you're done, so I set that up and went to amuse myself along Queen St. for an hour and a half. I'm always so damn nervous before getting things pierced, even though I know I've always been fine before. Oh well.So I came back a bit later, butterflies in my tummy, and waited around a few minutes till Tom was done with the previous person. We went in the little room and he asked if I remembered all the aftercare stuff – I'd been in there to get my hood done just 4 weeks previously. I did. I told him what I wanted, and we proceeded to mark the whole thing out – whether I wanted it vertically, or horizontally, and where, and all those things. He gave me a mirror so I could see what was going on, and a few times had to hold a second one for me so I could look at my ear straight on.
All this time he was busy drawing on my ear with a sharpie – showed me where the blood vessels were from the front and the back, and different places where we could put the holes. After quite a while we finally settled on two that are kind of horizontal – the one further from my head is a bit lower down than the one closer, so it runs parallel to the ridge that divides my inner and outer conch.
I also figured out that I'd had some misconceptions about how the whole thing would play out – I thought we'd pierce the first, let it heal, then the second, and put the ring through both of them then. No, says Tom, doesn't matter when both of them get done, but the ring shouldn't go through both of them till they're both healed. So the outside one gets done with a ring and the inside with a labret stud (because my ear is flat against my head there) and then once they're both healed they get a D-shaped ring through them, not a regular CBR. End result, this is going to be more expensive than I thought. Oh well, I've wanted it long enough.
Once we were settled on the placement, Tom started getting out the clamps, needles, jewelry, all that good stuff. He dripped a bit of betadine on my shirt while swabbing my ear off, so after that I got to wear a dentist's bib - I found this a bit humourous after our discussion on how to prevent dripping paint into the piercing at work. But no worries, it washes out very easily.
Anyway, after all the preliminary stuff (which seemed to take a very short time), changing his gloves 4 times, etc. we were ready, so I lost the mirror and my glasses, and Tom poised the needle behind my ear. There was a ton of pressure and it hurt terribly, a bit like someone pinching your ear real hard with their fingernails and not letting go. I could also feel it go in the back, pause for a second while he lined up with the front mark, and then I could feel it coming out the other side. I swore under my breath in pain. "Don't worry," said Tom, "That pressure will go away once the needle's out and the jewelry's in." That didn't take long at all, and the pressure did let up, but it still hurt, a lot.
I didn't bleed much, but enough that Tom had to hold some gauze on my ear for maybe 10 minutes. I started feeling a bit nauseated, so he lowered me down a bit so my head was lower than the rest of me and kept checking on the bleeding while we chatted about blood pressure and arteries and veins ("Piercers should know this shit," he said) and other stuff. After the blood had started clotting, he cleaned me up a bit and put the ball in the ring (that hurt a bit too) and that was it!
That evening it was still pretty painful – it felt real hot and red and I had a monster headache. A few hours later though, I realized that it had stopped hurting for the most part – it only hurt if I accidentally touched my ear or the ring, usually by trying to put my hair behind my ear.
Three days later it still hurt if the ring got moved, but not much. If I happened to roll over on it while I'm sleeping, though, that woke me up. Four days later I think I slept especially bad on it, because the next day it was hot, red, and painful all day long. Some Advil and sea salt helped with that. It was doing well though, no problems if I left it alone, it looked great, and though it was pretty painful, I was really eager to get the next part done!
June 9, 2004
I was downtown again because my little brother had a baseball game at the Skydome (provincial semi-finals... they lost 5-2 if you're curious). After that I told my parents I wasn't coming home with them, but rather going to get another hole. Mom freaked out about the cost, even when I fudged and only gave her the amount that the actual holes had cost, leaving out the jewelry part. So I got the speech on how this is just more money I'll be asking for from them and so on. Anyway, I invited her to come along with me so she could see me getting my money's worth, but she had to go back to work.The procedure was very much the same as last time, with a couple exceptions. First, there wasn't nearly as much time spent on marking, since we'd already decided where the second one was to go. Tom just had to check again for blood vessels. Second, it was way more painful!
Since my ear's right up against my head there, Tom decided to go front to back this time. Only problem is, a labret stud was going in it, not a ring, and so it had to go in from the back. This meant that the needle had to come right back out the front, instead of being pulled through. Instead of two distinct sharp pains, one for the entrance and one for the exit, there were four. I wasn't timing either, but it seemed to take longer, and there's that awful pressure for as long as the needle's in there. This time, Tom had to remind me to keep still.
Anyway, it was all over soon, and same as the first time, I felt pretty nauseated. Tom wet my hair a bit so that it would lie down and not get tangled in the back of the stud, lowered me so that my head was further down than the rest of me, and gave me some orange juice. I didn't bleed as much as the first time, though, and didn't have the terrible headache. I did have to sit out in the lobby for a bit till I stopped feeling woozy.
So after the second instalment, it looked really good. The stud is harder to wash, since I can't see under it very well, but I do soak it a lot. I couldn't wait till it was healed so I could see the final product.
January 6, 2005
I went to see Tom in his new shop that he'd opened after Stainless Studios closed. He'd ordered me a D-shaped CBR, and I figured there was no way I could put it in myself. However, this appointment was rather sad, as I didn't actually get to keep it in. After it was installed, Tom saw that the outside piercing was still swollen. In fact, on the front side, it was swollen up so much that my skin came out past where the D started to curve, and it was forcing it around counterclockwise, so that the bend was going into the inside piercing from the back. (Makes sense?) He took it out, put the original jewelry back in, and I left pretty disappointed.September 7, 2005
Almost a year and a half after the first piercing, and I still hadn't gotten my orbital finished. The day after I had my disappointment at Tom's shop in Toronto, I went back to school near Vancouver, and still haven't been back as I write this (Jan. 9, 2006). About three days after I went back to school, I woke up one morning to find that my ear had gone back to normal, and wasn't swollen at all. Go figure.In April I finally earned my degree and went to find a job in Vancouver. It took me almost four months. One September evening, I was strolling around downtown, noticed Anatomic Adornments was having a sale, and decided to drop in. I'd just started work the day before, and decided I'd get myself some congratulations-on-finally-getting-a-job orbital jewelry. I bought a circular barbell, and Corey put it in for me with the beads facing out. Later that evening I switched it around so the beads were to the back, since I thought it looked better that way. Unfortunately it was also really uncomfortable that way. I put it back as it had been.
A few days later I went back to Anatomic, and Corey worked at adjusting it for me. He ended up giving me a smaller diameter CBB which was much more comfortable and looked great. I'm really happy with it, and it finally looks the way I've wanted it to for several years.
It's not totally perfect, it sticks out past the ridge of my helix so sometimes it can be uncomfortable sleeping or talking on the phone on that side. Maybe one day I'll make it back to Toronto and get that D-ring from Tom. But for now, I'm happy since it looks great – even though it was a really long time coming.