Ah, the story of my ear. Well, the story so far, which really is only 6 days now, and just the left ear.
At A Glance Author nikki Contact pinsNpunks@aol.com When A week ago Artist James Studio Art & Soul Tattoo Location kalamazoo, MI I suppose that first I should let you know about how the "anatomy" of my ear was prior to the scalpelling. I had three piercings in my lobes. The lowest being stretched to 1 inch, a middle one that was around a 2g, and a third very high (about even with my anti-tragis) which is also a 2g. This is how my right ear still looks, and to be honest I rather like it, but for a number of months now, probably leaning toward 6 or more, I'd wanted to go bigger. And after much thought and discussion with my co-worker (who did my procedure for me) we came to the decision that removing the piece between my 1 inch and my middle 2g hole would be a better idea than continuing to stretch my lowest hole and creating thin spots and having the threat of splitting and still needing to connect the two eventually anyway.
Now, I have to say, that this is not really anything I was excited about. But, I do understand that it was realistically the "next step" that I needed to take to get the size that I desired. And so I ordered my jewelry, and waited until I felt confident to do it. It was probably about a month after my jewelry came in that we decided to do it.
I was really nervous, so much that even thinking about it weeks before hand I would be a little sick feeling over it. But I collected myself, and on the table I went. Everything was already all set up for me when I went in to the room, and I removed my jewelry, James cleaned my ears off and marked when he would cut them; I took a few good deep breaths and finished off my oh-so-delicious grape glucose tablets (just a precaution) and then went a laid down on the table which was already covered with a barrier cloth.
What happened next was quite possibly the most awful pain I have ever experienced in my life. The first cut was really not too bad, deep breaths, and a little sting with the final slice that separated the tissue. I'm not usually much of a bleeder, but I could feel that it was warm there and assumed that I was in fact bleeding already. The second cut, which later when I talked to him about this he said was the inside cut, hurt a little more but it horrifying thing for me was that I could hear the cutting. I don't mean to scare anyone off from this, but even now thinking about that sound makes me feel queasy. The cutting was done the piece was removed, and I could feel the blood running down my neck, he ran a taper thru (this is about where I started to cry and want to twist away from him) and actually had to make another small cut to fit the jewelry in. I have no way of making exactly clear how painful this really was. . .
We had planned on doing both ears. We only did the left one. I think that I probably cried for a good 20 minutes after having it done. And then finally, I looked at it. It really is amazing how much bigger that 1/2 inch was, it looked more like I went up a whole inch more. And my first impression was that I hated it, although I think that was just the shock of the size change because as I kept looking at it I liked it more and more.
It was much later that night when the bleeding stopped. The next day was very tender and sleeping that night was nearly impossible. . .
I would like to say that I now love my ear. It's been 6 days, the soreness is waning. And I can survive with out chowing down the IB-proferin. . . but in talking to James, we've both decided that once it's healed enough to remove the jewelry, that it would be best to let them relax a little and then I can really treat them to be sure they stay nice and thick. I don't see letting them go any smaller than 1 1/4 but I do think that 1 1/2 inch is just too big for my face to carry.
Over all, I'm very happy, I will still be going thru and having my right ear done, but it will probably be a while yet. . . I would like to be able to sleep sometime, and having both done just doesn't allow for that. For now I will have to wait.