It was days after Christmas. Days before New Year's. The location? Pizza Hut, West St. Paul, MN.
At A Glance Author LuciferRising Contact LuciferRising@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist Derek Studio Saint Sabrina's Location Uptown, Minneapolis, MN At 28 I had never been pierced or tattooed. Just too afraid of pain I suppose. And I never really had the inclination to. But my girlfriend Nicole (Parisa here on this site) had talked me into getting my lobes done. I had ordered some jewelery online (4 gauge Neo-Tribal captive bead rings) that I loved. But then I realized that they wouldn't be good for a fresh piercing because they're all jagged and pointy. So I got some regular CBRs with pop-fit balls.
I had already set up an appointment at Saint Sabrinas because I had a history with them. (I used to work there, when it was in a different location. It was kind of Darksider clothes downstairs with a headshop and piercing/tattooing upstairs). Why I never got the urge when I worked there, I don't know. But anyway, shoving pizza in my mouth, I decided I was ready.
I'm sure they were just as sanitary at the other location, but the way the new place is set up, it's kind of the theme. The whole place looks sterile. And everyone who works there has enough knowledge to tell you what you should do, or what could happen if you do things differently. And most of them are very nice too.
So we went home for a bit so's I could get my head together. And when that was done, it was off to the shop. When they gave me my paperwork, I took out my rings. And my piercer (Derek) told me that they wouldn't start me with the rings I had because they were too heavy. So I looked through their selection and decided on some solid stainless steel plugs. I filled out my paperwork. Nope, didn't drink today. Nope, not on any drugs. yup, healthy enough to heal. We went upstairs to one of the rooms where I sat down on the table and Nicole took a chair. Derek spent a while getting all the equipment ready and while he did this he let me know what to expect. He acknowledged that it would hurt a bit, especially since I decided to start with such a large gauge, but that it really wouldn't be that bad.
He got all his stuff sterilized and laid out, and then he took out the iodine to mark me. He spent a good deal of time doing this, but that's a good thing. Nobody is totally symmetrical so it's hard to get things matched up like they are. He let me look at his marks (circles with cross-hairs) and they looked great to me. I said alright, let's do it!
He put some kind of weird clamp on my left ear and made sure I was ready. He said I'd feel a bit of a pinch, then it would feel really warm. And then a bit of a pulling sensation. He told me to do some breathing slowly in through the nose and out the mouth. I told him I was about ready so I breathed once or twice more and on my breath out, he pushed the needle through. Oooooooooo... and he got my plug. Then the pulling again and putting the O-ring on the back. It's done. It did hurt, but it wasn't that bad at all.
Had to wait a bit to do the next, but I wasn't afraid. I just wanted my jewelery in. So same deal on the right side and it was done. He was very personable and smooth with the needle, so it wasn't bad at all.
Then Derek asked me if I wanted to see the needle. If you've never seen a 4 Ga piercing needle, it looks pretty fucking threatening. It's big to begin with, but it's cut diagonally so it just looks massive. I'm glad I didn't see it before. I might have run away. He told me to try to keep my hands off of them for a while, soak them in sea salt water and keep them clean so I could come back in a few months to put in my big rings.
We walked out, happy and a little hurt, with some red showing through the clear O-rings and went home to show them off to all the roommates. My new holes were sore for maybe a couple of days, but after that they were pretty much fine. I did my soaks and tried to keep my hands off of them (but damn that's hard, I just want to play with them all of the time).
I love them, they look great and are healing really well. And now I spend lots of time trying to decide on what to do next.