Holes in my head

Last weekend was an exciting one! The doctor told me that I had bronchitis, Stuart and I had our third annual Summer Solstice party and I got my new piercing.  :)

The bronchitis was mild but annoying and although I don't run to the doctor for every sniffle, that cough didn't bode any good.  I got five days of antibiotics, took them faithfully and now I'm back to just allergy miseries.  Although even those are reduced with the new remedies that the homeopath sent me. However, since I was diagnosed Saturday and the party was Sunday, I felt that I owed folks a warning. Many people opted not to hang out with my germs, so in the end we had seven people. That was ok though, since that was about all I had energy for.  It was a quieter party but still nice.  

In retrospect, I thought that the antibiotics were actually quite interestingly timed.  I went straight from the doctor's office to Tribal Expression  to have my new earring put in. Since infection is the biggest problem with new holes, having the antibiotics coursing my blood stream for the first few days couldn't hurt anything... :)

I ended up getting a four turn spiral bar (sometimes called a "weaving") - it's a helix piercing, which means it's in the cartilage of the outer rim of the ear. The piercer and I picked where on my ear we wanted it to sit and then she had me lay down. They are serious about sterilization, which was great. The jewellery, tools, etc. went into the autoclave while she swabbed my ear with a combined numbing agent and coagulant. She put a mini surgical drape around my ear, marked the first hole location, punched the hole and threaded in the bar. (I couldn't see anything, so I don't know exactly how that went down.) The numbing took some of the sting out of the skin, but I could definitely still feel it!

I was distracted however by the double "pop" noise of the needle going through skin and cartilage.  Very cool. (For those who don't know, they don't use a solid needle, they use a hollow one, so it actually takes out a little plug of flesh. My jewellery is 16G, so she used a 14G needle in order for the hole to be large enough for the bar to turn freely.  Cartilage isn't as forgiving as the flesh of the lobe - you can stretch it a little bit, but it's prone to cracking or shattering if not treated gently.)

Anyway, for the next three holes, she turned the bar through to see where the next hole should be, marked it, backed off the bar a bit and punched the next one. Rinse, lather, repeat. By the time the fourth one was done, I was glad that was it. It wasn't painful, but the sense of injury does start to override the adrenaline. I'll never be a piercing junkie - I got this done because I've wanted it for years, but I think that'll probably be all the holes I have added deliberately!

She screwed on the balls very tightly, cleaned it all up and had me sit up carefully.  No fainting! She took a picture and that was it.  It was done. Six days later and so far it's healing cleanly. I had very small blood crusties to clean off for a day or two and bruising in the ear lobe which just looks funny. That's started to fade now though. At some point, I'll start to get the white crusties to clean off - yeah. It can take up to a year for everything to heal completely, even if there are no complications, so cleanliness is above godliness for the next while. 

I knew it would happen that Stuart would knock it at least once.  He did and managed to turn it about 3/4 around one rotation. It was too tender for me to futz with until this morning, when i soaked it with the Sea-Clens, took a deep breath and turned it back. I am supposed to be turning the salt water through it gently, but before now it was just too ouchy! I also bought a cheap pillow and cut a hole out, big enough to hold my ear without touching the bar. I'm such a dedicated side sleeper that a month or two without sleeping on my left side would have driven me to madness.

Here it is, directly after the piercing was done.