At A Glance Author Thea Contact Thea@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Megan Studio Camden Chameleon Location Bellingham, WA When I decided that I wanted a new ear piercing, I happened upon BME and spent (shameless plug) literally hours perusing the photo galleries, book-marking the photos I liked. I lost the better part of my October this way, and, after much deliberation, I decided on the helix--though a helix pierced with a hoop didn't appeal to me a whole lot initially, a helix with a small barbell certainly did. I made up my mind and sauntered on down to Camden Chameleon to make an appointment.
When my appointment date arrived, I felt oddly relaxed. The little room where the magic happened was decorated with paintings ("by clients," I was informed) and by posters with chipper phrases like "Tipping makes it hurt less." My piercer, Megan, discussed jewelry and placement with me; she marked my ear once, led me to the mirror and let me move the mark forward, and angle the black line a bit more. I hopped up on the table and laid back and listened as Megan opened sterilized packets and Johnny Cash sang "Ring of Fire" over the stereo. I felt like humming, or swinging my feet.
Before we began, Megan gave me lessons in deep breathing (to open my chi, she said, to make the piercing easier for her and less painful for me), which were incredibly helpful, but difficult--I couldn't help but laugh when I realized that my desire to avoid pain was directly in conflict with my desire to look cool. After all, it is very difficult to look cool when you're rounding your cheeks and blowing all that bad energy out in one pink-cheeked whoosh. But the breathing helped, plenty. It put me in a nearly comatose state, so that by the time the actual needle went through and the jewelry in, the whole thing was a piece of cake. Seriously. No terrible crunching, no stabbing pain--just a rush of adrenaline, a pinch and the curious sensation of the blood running out of, and back into, my ear (if that makes sense). And as I left Camden Chameleon, I thought exactly that: a piece of cake.
Possibly, that was my first mistake.
My second mistake was not paying attention to, and consequently forgetting, certain key aspects of my after-care instructions. Like the part where I was supposed to soak my ear (awkward, but soothing) for 15 minutes, twice a day.
Fifteen. Not five.
But since my piercing looked downright darling all of Friday and Saturday and the better part of Sunday, five-minute soaks and all, I was not concerned--until Sunday evening, when suddenly it began to swell. And swell, and swell. By Sunday night, it was a furious red, and so painful that a breeze in the general vicinity of my ear was enough to make me whimper--the puffiness extended all the way down to my top lobe piercing, onto the back of my ear, and all the way up to the bottom of each ball on the barbell. Terribly painful, and not attractive at all.
Since I'm the sort of person who jumps to the absolute worst conclusion, I quickly determined that my ear was hopelessly infected and there was nothing for it but amputation. I began imagining what life might be like without a right ear, and how I would manage: would the loss of an ear effect my balance? Would I hear music differently? Would I ever play the guitar again, or would I be stricken tone-deaf? Certainly, a missing ear would change the way other people interacted with me...I lost as much sleep over this as I did over the boiling, throbbing pain centered in one half-inch square of my ear.
This sad, melodramatic state of affairs continued throughout Monday, and Tuesday. By my lunch break on Wednesday, I was desperate enough to leave work on my break and crawl pitifully into Camden Chameleon, where Megan took one look and said, "Oh yeah, that looks pretty pissed off."
She suggested changing out the barbell for a longer bar, to accommodate the swelling, which I was all for, even if I could think of no way of changing the bar that wouldn't hurt like hell. So, hell it was.
And there went my "piece of cake." Changing the barbell was immensely unpleasant, but--listen to this--so, so very worth it. Almost immediately I felt better. While she was at it, Megan changed the silver hoops in my lower piercings to steel; she told me to ice my ear all day and then resume my fifteen minute (I hung my head sheepishly) soaks, which I did. The change was dramatic: I felt like a whole new girl, with a whole new right ear. I forgot all my fears about gangrene and amputation, and soaked with a renewed vigor.
If there is a moral to this story, ladies and gentlemen, it is this: if your piercer says soak, soak.