At A Glance
Author	home dyke
Contact	homedyke@yahoo.com
When	Three months ago
Artist	carrie
Studio	sir inks a lot
Location	miami

Rickety rooks

I've always been kinda paranoid about piercings in general. I only really am into ear piercings, they're the only ones I find truely beautiful. And so I've collected quite a few, on my left I have a helix spiral, snug, tragus, and 4 lobe. On my right I have a double industrial, double tragus, 3 lobe, an anti tragus, and now, a double rook. So I'm not new to healing cartilage piercings, or doubles for that matter.

Boy was this not fun....

But I'll start at the top. one day I woke up and decided to get the beautiful double rook done. So I washed my ear and headed to the studio I frequent quite often. When I got there they were empty so I got to go in straight ahead...yay!I went into the piercing room like I always do and made myself quite comfy on the dentist chair, and waited for my piercer. When she came in she smiled cuz she knew what I wanted. Long story short, it was done with 2 14 gauge curved 5/8" barbells and I was happy as a clam.

That's about as far as I got with the happyness factor. I walked out the parlor and it pretty much went sour. I don't like listening to my surroundings, so I always have my headphones and ipod at all times. I put my wrap around headphones on quite gingerly and went on my merry way.

Since my ear wasn't bothering me I forgot I had a fresh piercing and when I ripped off my headphones I pulled the outer most barbell. So when I got home I ran for the shower, gave it a good soft wash with dial soap, which by the way is the best for fresh piercings, and stuck my ear in a bowl of warm salt water for 15 min.

Besides that, healing went swimmingly. Soaking my ear for 15 min 2 times a day and not touching it for anything in the world. It swelled something horrible for about a week and I thanked the piercing gods for such a long barbell. After the initial super swelling went down, my ear was just a little red and puffy. I think I was sleeping on it accidentally wich couldn't help it too much.

I found it quite usefull to rub some vitamin e oil on it while it was swollen because the skin around it got really dry and chapped looking. It wasn't too much of a hassle since I rubbed my lobes with it too.

For those of you who haven't tried it, a chamomile tea bag really does help when it looks angry. I don't know who first came up with the idea of it, but it's wonderful. And you have a nice cup of tea to drink too! No waste no sir.

Week 2 was kind of un eventful. I just kinda kept on with the sea salt soaks and the oil. Temperatures really do affect finicky piercings. When it was hot and humid, all my piercings acted up and got itchy, including my stretched lobes. It's all in the name of the game, you're in it for the good and the bad.

After 3 weeks the swelling was pretty much gone, but I noticed the outer most barbell was a little tilted, probably due to me yanking it with my headphones, but it was nothing I couldn't deal with. I went back to the studio to have the barbells changed out for something less annoyingly long. That helped a lot with the whole getting it caught on clothes and blankets and such. I was always worried I'd cause more damage to it than I already have and it would have to be retired before I got a chance to enjoy how pretty they were.

Since then, they have the occasional flare ups when it's super hot and humid but besides that everythings been groovy.

I hughly recomend the rook for anyone who wants a really interesting looking piercing that complements the shape of the ear beautifully. The only thing is you have to be quite careful with it. It is in an area that's easily caught when removing clothes and snuggling in bed with the loved ones.

Thanks for reading my lovely story :) I hope I've been able to help people choose yes ifbthey were on the fence on whether to get it done or not. And remember not to touch your new piercings people. It does a lot more harm than good. And don't pick at crusties or anything that might be happening up there. I did it with my single tragus and now I have some unsightly hypertrophic scarring :(

Well once again, thanks for reading. Happy piercing, and remember, look but don't touch!!