At A Glance Author Ptomb Contact Ptomb@bme.anon When It just happened Artist Me Studio In a bathroom Location New Albany, IN Tonight, March 28th, 2006, I went to my pal Cricket's apartment and put two holes in her head, one in each ear.
She'd been wanting to get the helix portion of her ear punched out. I used a 5 mm Dermal Punch and a pair of single flared Pyrex eyelets that she'd previously ordered from the BMEShopfor the job. I had previously punched her conches for her at 2.5 mm (or 8 gauge) and they healed up very well. She's a trooper!
I did my best to keep them even but I think because of the asymmetry of her ears they look a little odd. But, she was happy with them.
Now, that was after they got in her head. Getting them there was an ordeal all in itself!
Since I'm not a professional in any sense of the word, we had to make due with what we had for the procedure. We had the dermal punches and jewelry, but no backing material and not a very good selection of sanitizing products. Cricket didn't care, though. She has an appreciation for the "do it yourself" lifestyle and wanted to have me do it over a paid piercer simply because she was more comfortable with me. I have to say, she's tough as nails!
First we used a flashlight to look at her ears so that we could avoid any capillaries and make this as easy as possible, but with a 5 mm punch and her ears being so small, that was going to be tough. I made marks with a Sharpie and we compared them in there mirror and got the ok!
So, since the dermal punch can cause collateral damage if there's nothing to catch it on the other side of the skin, we had to find something to catch it with. Matt, my roommate, was there and he came up with the improvisation of using a tennis ball cut in half and turned inside out. He's innovative!
It worked, well almost, but I'll discuss that in a moment.
The first punch was tough because we were all nervous. I tried to get Matt to help me by doing the other ear at the same time, that way it's all over quickly and it would minimize the endorphin loss. But, rationality set in and we realized that it would be too tough to keep it straight since Cricket would likely not stay still. And she didn't. Personally, though, I think Matt was just chickening out...
The first punch went through to the inverted ball half, which amplified the crunch of the cartilage being cut out. I got the jewelry in and then it started bleeding... Weird.
We took a fifteen minute break to have more sugar and to calm down. She was too tightly wound to actually sit down, but I can't blame her. I cleaned up and got ready for the next one.
Now it was time for the next one. I get her calmed down and then I punched, but I didn't get a flush fit with that pesky half-ball. So, there was still a little bit of flesh holding the plug of skin and cartilage to her ear. After fiddling with it for a moment, I had to use the sharp edge of the dermal punch to cut through the skin and remove it. There is still a little lump there, so in the future I'll go back with a scalpel and remove that little nub, if it doesn't just reabsorb into her skin first.
After that, we cleaned up, chatted, and had tea. She was wearing a towel around her neck to catch the little blobs of blood that were dripping down her ear. I must have gone through some capillaries on each ear, but it wasn't enough blood to really be all that worried about.
She's had other punches from me (in her conchs) but I felt it to be important to remind her of the basic after care of punches, such as hot sea salt soaks and taking the jewelry out daily (after a couple of days) to allow the wound to get some air. I also reminded her to avoid aspirin, alcohol, or other blood thinning agents. For the inflammation, I recommended naproxan sodium (also known as Advil) since it was an anti-inflammatory that didn't have aspirin in it. I also said that caffeine would help since it's a vasoconstrictor and will tighten up those little capillaries. The tea we had reminded me of that. She knew all of this but really appreciated me reminding her.
She will likely not get any sleep tonight, but I'm sure she'll think it was worth it! I'll check up on her tomorrow and again in a few days to make sure all is well!
