About a year ago I was walking down the road when I noticed the piercing studio. Normally I plan absolutely everything in my life, however at this time, for some reason I decided to go in and get a piercing. When I walked in I chose to have a cartilage piercing. After I said hi to Paul (the guy who pierced my ear) I sat in the chair and he talked me through what was about to happen. He showed me the sterile needle and jewellery he was going to use and asked me to sign various documents explaining that he has explained everything to me and that all the equipment he was using is clean.
At A Glance Author Paul Contact scary_randomness@hotmail.co.uk When A year ago Artist Paul Studio Pro Body Piercing Location Bradford Finally the time had come for me to have my second piercing. Paul numbed my ear with an anaesthetic spray, put on his gloves and started to remove the needle from the packaging. As the needle approached my ear I took a deep breath and without further or do the needle was through my ear. It was at this time when things started to go wrong.
After Paul had put the needle through my ear he started to unwrap the jewellery when suddenly the telephone rang. He got up to answer it leaving me sitting there with a big needle sticking through my ear. After he had finished the long dreary phone call, he removed the needle form my ear without thinking to change his gloves after handling the germ-infested phone. Following this he fitted my jewellery and I was on my way home.
As I was walking down the street I felt a burning, pulsating sensation in my ear but thought nothing of it, as this is normal for a new piercing. Half an hour later I arrived at home, took some ibuprofen to relive the swelling and redness and showed my new piercing to my family, my dad for one hated it.
The next morning like any other day I woke up, got out of bed and went to have a shower. When I got to the bathroom I looked in the mirror and was shocked by what I saw. My ear had swollen up like a balloon and had turned a maroon colour. Around the jewellery there was a thick layer of yellow crust. My ear was increasing in size and it was getting too tight for the jewellery. Instantly I washed my hands and tried to remove it from my ear, but it wouldn't come out, it had started to sink into my ear.
I instantaneously ran downstairs to show my parents, who at that point went absolutely crazy. Whilst my dad started to shout at me and tell me that I shouldn't have got it done in the first place, my mum phoned a taxi to take us to the hospital. A few minutes later my younger brother arrived at my house with his girlfriend and a couple of his friends. All of which started laughing at the state of my ear. To make matters worse they each had a camera phone and started to take pictures of me to forward to their friends.
Before long the taxi arrived at my house and I was on my way to the hospital. The driver couldn't help looking at my huge swollen ear through the mirror. When we arrived at the hospital I went to see the triage nurse, although she was professional, she couldn't making a few jokes about my ear. My mum also joined in to make fun. As I was walking waiting my mum started to mumble a tune: 'do your ear hang low, do they wiggle too and throw, can you tie 'em in a knot, can you tie 'em in a bow'.
At the time, although my ear was really painful, I couldn't help laughing.
Finally it was time to see the doctor. After making a few jokes about my ear he tried to remove the bar from my ear that had started to sink. This had to be the most pain I have ever being through. After 3 attempts and a total of 5 minutes he finally removed the bar from my ear. Right away blood and puss started to seep from my ear. The doctor controlled the bleeding and cleaned up my ear. I was prescribed strong painkillers and antibiotics to reduce the swelling.
The next morning it was obvious that the swelling had started to alleviate, I was so relieved that my ear wasn't going to drop off or something.
A week later the swelling had completely reduced. However, unfortunately my ear was still a little bigger than the other one. It has being around a year now since I get the piercing and my ear has not reduced in size. It is and always will be a little bigger than the other one. Thankfully people don't tend to notice the difference in size unless I tell them first.
Since the incident I have had two more piercings, but this time I went to 'No Pain No Gain' piercing studios in Shipley where Sarah conducted the piercing. Thankfully there were no problems with these piercing.