At A Glance
Author	Amber
Contact	Amber@bme.anon
IAM	maber
When	It just happened
Artist	Pat Tidwell
Studio	Puncture
Location	Upland, California

My ears, as a lot of girls, were gun pierced when I was an infant, at a mall. Growing up, I never had a problem with them. For gun piercings, they were placed well. When I was in grade school, one of them was ripped. The front of the piercing ended up being a bit lower than the back. When I decided to start stretching my ears, over two years ago, I more or less thought that the bigger holes would help to even up the slightly uneven piercings.

Needless to say, I was very wrong. When I stopped at 00g for awhile, I could see a big difference in my ears. One plug was centered nicely on my lobe, while the other was lower, and somewhat thinning at the bottom. I went ahead and taped them up to 1/2", after over a year at 00g. It was definitely easy and gentle on my ears, but the amount of skin above my left piercing, and the small amount below it definitely started getting to me. I had considered scalpelling my ears a long time before. I knew I didn't want to have uneven ears for the rest of my life. I also didn't want to end up with my lobe too thin.

Being somewhat new to the area I live in, I hadn't gotten any work here. Before I moved, Puncture had been recommended to me by a piercer in Oklahoma City, so I looked up the address and drove down to speak to someone about my ears. I knew that if they couldn't help me, they would know who could. When I went in there, I was instantly comfortable and happy with the atmosphere of the lobby of the shop. I spoke with the girl at the counter, and she asked if it was okay if I waited until Pat was freed up to come talk to me, which was no problem. While I was waiting it came to my attention that Pat was from Dallas, which is where I just moved from. This pretty much sealed the deal of who would be working on my ears. It was nice to have the familiarity of someone I knew of from where I grew up.

Pat looked at my ears, and decided that the left one should be cut up and out. The right one was to be left alone, which made me happy because I wasn't particularly looking forward to having chunks of skin removed from my ears. He said it looked like we could get to 5/8" in one go. We talked for a little while, about my ears and how things in Dallas are and about leaving there, and he told me to come in on Saturday at eight or eight fifteen, and we'd get things going.

I spent the week getting myself all worked up over it. There were points where I nearly had panic attacks and just felt all around sick. Saturday came and I had a small group of people to go with me. Handholder? Check. Photographer? Check. I was nervous, but I had a good support system.

There was a bit of a wait when I got to the shop. My procedure was to be behind the others, since it was a little more in depth. There was definitely no problem with that. I was still nervous, but felt a bit more at ease, too. I filled out all my paperwork, and picked my jewelry. I decided on a 5/8" pyrex tunnel, mostly because I wanted to be able to see the inside of my ear as it healed. I went ahead and bought another 5/8" tunnel, as well as a 9/16" piece, for the right ear which was to be slowly stretched up.

Pat called me back, and I jokingly told him I wouldn't be going, as I was getting up. I was allowed two people back, so I had my photographer and my hand holder. Pat started things out by just cleaning up my ear, and marking it. None of the scary tools were out yet. When I saw the mark, it somewhat made me nervous to see how much skin was going to be removed. As if I wasn't already nervous. After all of the marking, he brought his wife in to help with the clamping and holding.

I don't think I can stress how comfortable it made me feel working with not only Pat, but the two of them together. I had talked to his wife about scalpelling before I even went in there. They were both very nice and the chemistry in the room was very relaxing to me. Pat explained to me what he was doing as he did it, and how it should feel while he's doing it. The clamps were on, and I must say I've never experienced pain from clamps before, but I did this time. I couldn't help but think that if the clamps were this bad, the rest of the procedure would be cake.

He told me to breathe in deep, and out. As I breathed out, the cutting started. It was very different from what I expected. I could feel and hear him sawing it, and my ear fill up with blood. It hurt, but definitely not a horrible horrible pain. I managed to keep my breathing steady and stay mostly relaxed, rather than hold my breath and tense up. There were a couple little chunks he was having a little trouble getting off. The clamps were removed, and it was time to put the jewelry in. I could feel the blood drip down my neck. It was the creepiest feeling. They had sterilized a 5/8" tunnel and a 9/16" tunnel, just in case. The 5/8" popped in with a little stretch. That was probably the worst part of the procedure.

We spent a few minutes trying to get the blood clotting, and then bandaged my ear and I was on my way. It throbbed a bit, and I took some ibuprofen before I got out of the shop.

They sent me away bandaged up, happy, and with a cute little goody bag. My aftercare instructions were to just leave it alone, no cleaning, touching, or getting wet for five days. Afterwards, salt soaks were recommended. I tend to just leave my piercings alone for healing, so that's the method I'm going to use with this one. It was also recommended that I go back in a week or so to give Pat a chance to look at it and see how it's healing, so I'll be doing that too. I kept the piece of skin they removed, and I'm going to turn it into a snow globe.

I took the bandage off about three hours after the procedure, being unable to hold back any longer. The gauze was glued to the tunnel and my ear by the dried blood, but I gently worked it off. There was a lot of dried blood, but I was instantly in love with it. I had initially been so unhappy with my ears at 1/2", but the 5/8" was just beautiful to me. I can't even put into words how happy I am with the piercing, and the entire procedure in general.

It's been close to two days since I got it done, and healing is going great. I've managed to gently get most of the visible dried blood off without hurting anything, and a lot of people get a kick out of being able to see the inside of my ear. I can't wait to get the right one up to 5/8" so I can have symmetry back.