Introduction
At A Glance Author DeadTomato Contact DeadTomato@bme.anon IAM DeadTomato When A week ago Artist Quentin Studio Kalima Location Worthing, Sussex, UK
At the age of ten, like many girls my age, I wanted my lobes pierced. Unfortunately, both me and my Mum didn't know any better than to go to a dodgy jewelers to have my ears pierced with a gun by someone who had been trained in 'piercing' for no longer than a day. The experience was terrible. The gun got stuck on both ears after piercing each one, and the man that had pierced me had also done one piercing quite low down on my ear. Obviously, since I was young, this fact didn't really bother me at the time. All that I was bothered with was getting away from that place, and never going back.
Five years later, at the age of fifteen, I took my first trip into the wonderful city of Brighton. A whole new world was open to me - for the first time in my life, I had the chance to see people being themselves and not caring what people thought. I saw a huge man walking around, with big holes through his ears (I can now make an educated guess that they were probably stretched to around 11/2"). I found this disturbing, but at the same time, I couldn't stop looking at them. I wanted to know more - why? How?
As soon as I got home from my day out, I was on the internet looking up stretched lobes. The gist of what was available to me was that you got a taper and shoved it through. As much as I didn't want to admit it to myself, I was actually starting to like stretched lobes, leading me to needing them to satisfy my curiosity. On eBay, I bought a pair of 1.6mm/14g stretching crescents. As soon as they had arrived in the post, I pushed them into my lobes. Since I didn't know any more about stretching than simply using an implement to make it bigger, I hadn't used a lubricant, and it hurt a lot. A few weeks later in Brighton, I bought a pair of cheap acrylic tapers in 2.4mm/10g, and again, just shoved them through, followed by some equally cheap and nasty 4mm acrylic tapers a few days later.
I carried on stretching in this manner until about 14mm, however I had about a years break after reaching 8mm. I had not yet immersed myself into the body modification community, and as I have mentioned, didn't know any better. However, I do not remain blameless, since I could have easily learned the errors of my ways had I looked hard enough. I hadn't known that stretching my ears in such a fast, brutal way was thinning them, albeit only very slightly. The problem was, however, that my right lobe, the one that had been pierced close to the edge, didn't exactly have the room for thinning. One day, my friends remarked to me about how thin said lobe was looking, and it hit me. Onto the internet once more, and I suddenly realised how stupid I'd been, and immediately downsized to around 5mm with both lobes. It was time to start over, but properly.
Over the next year, I stretched both of my lobes up again, but found myself stuck at 10mm with my right lobe. Though it would go bigger, it didn't look like it would do so comfortably, so I stopped stretching it. By this stage, body modification was a large part of my life, and a part of me needed to reach my goal of 1" before I could be happy with my ears. Unfortunately, it didn't seem as if I was able to do so without scalpelling. I had only just turned seventeen, so had a while to wait.
Over the course of the year that I had to wait, I began to resent my ear, and the fact that it didn't seem like it was ever going to be the way that I wanted it to be. I gave up on both of my ears, and concentrated on modifying the rest of my body so that I had something else to focus on. While doing so gave me a greater sense of myself, it still always felt like there was something missing.
Now, a few months back, I attended the first annual Brighton Tattoo Convention, which was fantastic. I got to finally meet the artist that would be tattooing my feet on my Birthday (but that's another story), and also got a chance to speak with Quentin (from Kalima in Worthing) about my right lobe, which by now was affectionately referred to as 'runt lobe'. He took a look at it, and agreed that it definitely wasn't going to make it far as it was, and said that he could probably scalpel it up to about 14-16mm (9/16"-5/8") fairly safely. It wasn't what I'd hope, but it was probably as close as I was going to get. He then mentioned reconstruction, and told me that I could start over. Though this would set me back a few years (and cost a lot!), it seemed to make sense to do things right and get to my real goal of 1". I told him I'd think about it, but booked in an appointment for my 'mystery mod' for March 9th 2008, 4 days after my 18th Birthday.
I thought about what to do with my ear long and hard, and eventually decided that though it would set me back such a long way, reconstruction logically seemed to be the better option. So that was it. For the next couple of months, I put it at the back of my mind, because honestly, I wasn't looking forward to it.
The night before my reconstruction, I panicked. What if the scar tissue prevented me from stretching? Then I would never reach my goal. My boyfriend tried to talk me out of going, since he knew how important it was that I was sure about what I was doing. Though I was terrified, I told him that it was now or never. I honestly couldn't have told anyone, at that point, whether I was going to go through with the reconstruction, or chicken out.
Day 1
In the morning, I woke up and dealt with things in a rather business-like manner, since I didn't want to think about what was going to happen to me. I just did what I needed to do. So Pete and I woke up early, got a lift to Lewes train station, and got the bus into Brighton (the train wasn't running). From there, we got the train to Worthing, and walked for 15 minutes from the station to Kalima. That was the same journey that I would have to make on the way home, after just having my ear massacred. On the way down, I withdrew £200 (around $400), since this was the top-end price that I had been quoted for my reconstruction.
We walked into the studio, and I still wasn't nervous, but only because I hadn't been thinking about it. If I had, I would have been a wreck. Quentin greeted us, and immediately told me that he'd been thinking about how to deal with my lobe a lot, and had decided that scalpelling would be the better route. And there I was, thinking I was going to have my ear sewn back together. In a way, I was relieved – I wanted to take steps forwards, not backwards. He rushed us into the back room before I even had a chance to get nervous (one of Quentin's brilliant calm-down tactics).
Quentin told me that he could quite easily take my lobe to 16mm, but it would require skin removal instead of the normal straight cut. As I said earlier, 16mm wasn't great, but it seemed to be the best I was going to get, and as Quentin told me, there was always a chance that I could slowly stretch up towards my goal. He explained the procedure to me, and before I knew it, I'd had the markings drawn on my ear, and I was lying down on the table, ready to be cut. Tears started rolling down my face, partly due to the huge wave of fear that had suddenly washed over me, and partly due to it finally being the moment that I had been waiting for, for so long. Quentin calmly told me that the way I was feeling was natural, and explained that the word 'scalpel' has many negative connotations, which is why, as a first-time procedure for myself, it seemed to terrifying.
He prepared my ear, talking me through what he was doing, and told me that he was ready to do the cut.
'I'm not ready.'
Quentin told me to take as much time as I needed. This was it, after all. I was still terrified, and needed to know what to expect. As much as I didn't want to, it was important to me that I asked Quentin the question that every piercer must grow tired of:
'How much is this going to hurt?'
Quentin did his best to explain the sensation that I could expect. I still didn't feel ready. He then asked me whether I had ever done a 2mm stretch. Yes, I had (like I've said, I was pretty stupid when I started stretching). It hurt like a bitch, but it was bearable. He then told me that it would hurt no more than that. That was it. I was ready. Okay.
I screwed my eyes tightly shut, and breathed in deeply. Quentin told me to relax, so I did so as much as I possibly could. What happened next was amazing.
I suddenly became so aware of everything – the way that Pete was holding my hand, the soft music, my breathing, and the sensation of the scalpel going through my ear. It hurt, yes, but barely. It was just all part of that unforgettable moment. It's pretty hard to explain the way I felt, but I'm sure that anybody who has gone through a similar experience would have an idea.
All the while that I was lying there, I was trying to work out what was going on with my ear, but I couldn't. Surely the minimal pain that I felt couldn't be it, could it? Surely there was worse to come? But there wasn't. I felt the cold sensation of the taper being pushed through my ear, and then a tissue being dabbed against it. 'That's it, we're done'. I kept my eyes closed – it was a defense mechanism, I guess. I always imagined myself, at this stage, wanting to sit up and admire my ear, but I didn't. I didn't want to see it while it was all bloody and swollen. I'd been waiting so long for my ear to be beautiful.
After trying to stem the bleeding for a bit, it became apparent that the bleeding wasn't easing (through no fault of my own – I don't drink, and didn't take anything else that may have thinned the blood). Quentin decided to do a couple of sutures in my ear to try to stop the bleeding. This was an uncomfortable sensation, but it wasn't painful. Truthfully, I was crying at this point, but more as a release than anything. It was an emotional experience, and seconds earlier I had thought it was over. I was emotionally exhausted.
Unfortunately, the bleeding still didn't stop, but this actually worked to my advantage, through a twist of fate. 'I'm going to stretch your ear up to 18mm to put more pressure on the source of the bleeding'. Everything just seemed to be going my way, though I really didn't want to have to go through much more. Quentin called in Jon, and asked him to get an insertion pin, and the larger jewellery. The insertion pin went though, which stung a little. Quentin tried to get the jewellery in, but it didn't go. That part hurt.
Jon passed a larger insertion pin, and Quentin put this through. Again, this hurt, as did Quentin's struggle to get the jewellery in. He asked for a larger insertion pin, and put it through. Ouch. But the jewellery was in. I heard Quentin saying something about the insertion pin being 20.5mm, before telling Jon that he must've passed the wrong sized jewellery. I had a 20mm lobe, and it had taken it easily. Amazing. Everything just worked out so perfectly.
After this, the bleeding stopped pretty quickly. Quentin waited for a little bit (until I told him that I felt like I could sit up without fainting), and then helped me sit up, before cleaning my ear off. I waited a few minutes longer before looking in the mirror, since, as I said a few paragraphs back, I didn't want to see my lobe while it was swollen and nasty looking, after all of this. When I eventually looked in the mirror, I was amazed. It just felt right, and I finally felt closer to being the person that I really wanted to be.
After the procedure was done, we went back out to the front of the studio, and I was sat in front of the open fire to warm up a little. Quentin made Pete and I drinks, (he makes really good tea), and I sat there recovering for around an hour, talking to Pete, Quentin and Jon about all things mod-related. After a while, I realised that I should be getting home, so paid the £50 ($100ish) for the procedure with a £10 ($20ish) tip, since Quentin was so great. So overall, I saved a grand total of £150 ($300ish), and got much more than I'd ever hoped out of it. It would have been so easy for Quentin just to have done the reconstruction and bagged the extra money, but he just did what was best, and I cannot begin to say how much I respect him for that.
So we made our way home, and I began to dread the night that lay ahead.
Day 2
I woke up in the morning after having painlessly slept on my ear. Somehow, before I went to sleep, I knew that my ear wasn't going to bleed much overnight, and indeed, the bleeding was very minimal. I went downstairs, boiled some water, and mixed in some of the sea salt that Quentin had provided with the little aftercare pack that he gave me. It took about 8 cotton buds, but I managed to clean all of the blood and lymph off my ear pretty easily, and relatively painlessly.
Day 5
Things have been really uneventful in all truth , but I can't say I'm not glad of that fact. The only thing of note (which I'm stupidly excited about, because it could mean getting closer to my goal) is how loose my lobe is getting. There is about 3-4mm of spare space when I pull down gently on my lobe.
Day 6
My screw-on tunnel fell out today whilst I was cleaning my ear, so I managed to clean it a bit more thoroughly, whilst getting a look inside. It looks a little raw, but not nearly as much as one would expect after 6 days. It seems to be healing beautifully.
Conclusion
So to sum my experience up... I can't. Before the procedure, I didn't even want to think about the pain and the healing, but when it came to it, I'd never experienced anything like it in my life. It was a true spiritual moment, one of getting one step closer to my true self. A true experience of mind, body and soul.