It was November 13, 2006. A Monday.
At A Glance Author Brittany Nicole Contact BrittanyNicole916@gmail.com IAM FreckleFace When Six months ago Artist Billy Studio Falcon's Tattoo Location Columbus, GA I had economics that morning at 10am, which was a class that I hated. I got back to my dorm afterwards and relaxed, as I always do. It was so nice to have one class on Monday that was over before 11am.
However, I received a call from my mom and she sounded heartbroken. Come to find out, my cat had to be put down to sleep that morning. My cat, Lucky, had been in my life for thirteen years. He had always been MY cat, my baby. He had a heart failure the year before but had recovered quite nicely. However, he had another heart failure that morning and edema in his lungs. There was pretty much no option but to put him down. Finding this out tore my heart in half. I had always heard people talk about how losing a pet was a very hard thing but I had never imagined it being as hard as it was.
Well, what do I do best when I am upset? Get a piercing. The words, "Mom, I am very upset, can I please just go get a new piercing," came out of my mouth. My mom, who hates piercings, said that if that was what I needed to do then she was okay with it.
So, I called up my best friend and told her what happened. My best friend had a similar thing happen to her a year back where her dog that she had all her life had to be put down and has always told me how much she still missed her dog. She told me that she would come with me and stay with me the whole day.
We went to our favorite park and relaxed for a little bit before going over to Falcon's in Columbus, Georgia. When we got there I explained to the piercer, Billy, that my cat had just died and I was having a horrible day. We discussed different piercings I could get. I wanted my industrial done again but helix piercings don't heal too well on me so I vetoed that idea.
Then he said rook. I had never thought about getting my rook pierced. But when he said it, it just seemed like a great idea. So Billy got everything ready and we walked into the piercing room.
My best friend stood there the whole time and was with me, which was great. He marked the spot and I agreed that the placement was perfect. Billy then clamped it, had me take a few breaths, and put the needle through. I think the "F" word came out of my mouth quite slowly. I really don't know why because the piercing hardly hurt at all. I think it was because I hadn't had a needle go through me in such a long time and it was a thicker piece of cartilage. We put the CBR into the fresh piercing which also added a bit of pain.
I thanked Billy, tipped him, and left with Sara.
The first week of having the piercing was simple. It didn't give me any pain, it moved easily, and doing sea salt soaks on it was a breeze. The next week, however, was a completely different story. It hurt really bad, felt like it was stiff, and was painful to clean. I think that week was one of the worst weeks with experiencing pain coming from any piercing I have ever had. However, after that second week my rook was perfect. It has never given me any problems in the nine months that I have had it. Other than my conch piercing, it has been the easiest cartilage piercing I have had this far and I am so extremely glad that I decided to go with piercing my rook. I still have the same CBR in it and it looks perfect with the other piercings I have on my right ear.
I hope to always have this piercing in memory of Lucky. As weird as I feel talking about my cat and being such an animal freak, he really was a great part of my life. I can remember being 6 years old, crying in my room about whatever, and just having him rubbing his head against mine. I still miss my Lucky a lot. When I go home from school, I feel like the house is empty and missing someone that had always lived there. The couch he loved just looks weird without him sitting there with his paws cross like a king. However, when I look in the mirror and see my beautiful rook piercing I just get to smile and think about him. It's a pretty great feeling.
Happy piercing to all those out there!