At A Glance
Author	marge
Contact	marge@bme.anon
IAM	marge
Artist	me
Location	san francisco

Let me just start by saying that most of what I did to myself was rash, stupid, and not recommended. However, I got the results I wanted and I learned a lot from my
experience.

About two years ago I got what one might call the piercing bug. I spent hours a day on bme drooling over different piercings. After a good deal of begging, my parents allowed me one piercing: navel. I decided I like the large gauge look but, not knowing what was really possible, I got it pierced with only a 10ga. It took a long time, maybe a year to heal and migrated a bit. It was frustrating to not be able to sleep on my stomach. I learned that my body likes titanium better than steel. You can see a picture of it here:

Not long after the original piercing was fully healed, I began to fantasize about a large gauge navel piercing. This was inspired mainly by the large gauge Prince Albert aesthetic. I thought hey, I don't have a penis, but what fun it would be to have a huge hole in my navel! After trying in vain to locate a studio that would do this for me, i saw francis sand's scalpelled navel. This somehow made me think that this was something I could do for myself.

I scrounge some money together, and place an order with bme shop (thanks ryan!). Emla cream, 2 scalpels, 0ga taper. I buy clamps from a shop in the city, and decide to use an old 0ga earlet (flesh tunnel) for jewelry. This was my first stupid decision. I wanted light jewelry, this I got right. But also I knew my body liked titanium better (I was being cheap, basically). I knew that these sort of things tended to swell, but I thought that wouldn't be much of a problem.

The first step was to apply the emla cream. First I have to take out the barbell currently occupying my navel. This was a huge step for me. I needed to have something there, so once the barbell was gone, something had to go in it's place. I spread the cream over and inside my navel, then cover it with saran wrap secured by medical
tape. While waiting for the cream to kick in, I make a trip to the drug store to pick up gloves, betadyne, and sterile gauze (to lay on the bathroom counter). I felt very odd walking around with this thing on my stomach, like I was undergoing some sort of experimental cancer treatment or dermatological study.

I invite two of my friends over, and we lock ourselves in the bathroom, telling my parents that Peter was giving me a haircut (ha!).
I peel the plastic wrapping from my stomach, and wipe the warm white emla cream away with betadyne. "Did it work?," I wonder, and gently pinch and prod my stomach. The area is completely numb. The imprint of my now-empty piercing puckers pathetically. Soon it will be replaced with something much better.

I mark the area to be cut, and try to find a non-awkward way of holding the skin and scalpel. As it turns out, this will be very hard to do standing up. Eventually I figure out a combination of clamp and scalpel, and make the incision. The skin cuts away easily (scalpels are very sharp) and the bleeding is unimpressive. At this point I am very nervous and shaky. I insert the taper, but it won't go through all the way. I cut more, but it's hard to find the edges of the incisions through the bloody elastic mess. Flesh is stretchy and very strong. I am surprised by how well my flaps of skin hold together, like
industrial strength rubber or overcooked calamari. At this point I am scared this will all just end up a big mess, but finally I get the jewelry in. In my navel sits a huge gaping earlet. The skin around it is pink and flustered. I get pretty shaky, and leave my house to chain smoke and eat a hot fudge sundae at Denny's.

For the next three days, I can barely function. It hurts to walk,
bend over, sit down. I don't sleep well because I am forced to sleep on my back. Everything moves my navel, so everything hurts, ripping clotted blood from flash. Here is a picture of the fresh piercing:

My navel becomes pretty swollen, so I drive to the city for longer jewelry. The guy in the shop is so impressed with what i've done, he gives me the barbell for free. It's a huge, heavy steel curved barbell. Its much too long. I get home, remove the earlet. The sight is obscene. Yellow chunks of dying skin cells sit calmly against pink live wet raw flesh. I soak with hot water and betadyne. I put the barbell in, and start to feel the word spinning around me, my head caving in. I go to lie down.

This jewelry is way to heavy, even with the balls removed (o-rings in their place). With every step the jewelry bounces up and down. This is not good for healing. A few weeks later I order a 5/8" long earlet. It works in that it is light enough, but the straight shape puts weird pressure on the skin around the piercing. Eventually I order a titanium curved barbell from anatometal. Its a bit too long, and the balls are ridiculously huge (again i use o-rings, this time teflon, which i highly recommend). Healing from this point on is slow, but looks promising. Had I just ordered appropriate jewelry in the first place, I wouldn't have so much scar tissue now, and my navel would have healed much more quickly.

About four months later, it is mostly healed except for a small flap of flesh on the inside that hangs out and generally looks pink and angry. Two months later, it is gone, and the piercing is healed. The whole process was a lot of worry that could have been avoided if had thought things out beforehand. But again, I love the results. It's a fun thing to fiddle with, and it looks great. Soon I will replace the silly barbell with an ebony spike.