| At A Glance | |
| Author | Miss. Hilda |
| Contact | Miss. Hilda@bme.anon |
| IAM | vanity_lust |
| When | A week ago |
| Artist | Brett Perkins. IAM: Solja |
| Studio | Anomaly Body Piercing Studio |
| Location | Pasadena, CA |
A little over 6 months ago I was in a very serious car accident due to the extent of my injuries and the fact that I would be needing to be going under the knife my doctors told me that I had to take out all of my piercing and told my parents they would need to stay out to make sure that none of them would lead me to have an infection. (Which is total crap, but my parents didn't know any better and were worried about my health.)
During this time period I was rather depressed and felt extremely self conscious being without my piercing, because if it had been my choice I would have left them in. But it also gave me a chance to think about the piercing that I would be able to get in the future.
One day I was sitting on my computer browsing through the BME navel galleries and I happened upon the large gauge navel section; and I just fell in love. I knew right away that I would eventually get it done. Now it was just the point of choosing at what gauge to get it done at. I started asking my friends what they thought would look good, so I could prepare myself for the future make sure I had the right jewelry to do it, as well as a piercer I would feel comfortable with. Everyone told me that I should go with a 6g telling me that my body was too tiny for anything else; and any bigger gauge would look too odd on my small frame. (I'm barely 5 feet tall, and only about 102 lbs) But despite what everyone told me I decided to go with a 4g.
It was now 6 months since my surgeries I was up and walking, going to physical therapy 3 times a week, going out with my friends pretty much living a normal life again. But I still felt as if I was missing something, something as in my piercing, that is when I decided it was time for me to get my navel done as well as the first piercing since my accident. I ordered myself a 7/16th 4g violet curved glass piece from Glass Wear Studio's the only thing I needed now was a piercer. Only a few weeks before hand my friend Heather (IAM: ozzisme) had gone to Brett Perkins (IAM: Solja and gotten her self a wonderful 6g lower navel piercing, and boy did it look wonderful. I then met Brett at the So. Cal. BME BBQ and began talking to him over IAM about getting my navel done; I knew almost right away that he would be the person I'd be going to get it done by. I made an appointment for Tuesday June 14th at 11am.
When Tuesday rolled around I was so excited and anxious it was almost unbearable! I had my friend Melissa and her boyfriend drive me on down to Anomaly Body Piercing Studio in Pasadena, and they dropped me off. I walked in, Brett said hi to me and showed me around the shop. I filled out the paper work and he took my jewelry to be sterilized.
We then began to discuss how we would actually be doing the piercing, this turned out to be one of the most difficult process's of getting the piercing done. After looked at my navel we decided between the choices of piercing or cutting it, considering the size of my navel and the piercing it's self we could have done either.
Brett decided that he would pierce it with a 5g needle then stretch it with a taper to a 4g and insert the jewelry. He pulled out the 5g needle, and began to look for the taper but he couldn't find one, being as they were all dirty and it would take too long to autoclave it, he decided to go for the other option and cut it. So he began to look for a scalpel but, guess what? He couldn't find any, they were all out.
Finally after about 30 min, we finally came to a solution. After doing a "dry run" to see how much resistance I would have, he decided he would pierce it with a 5g needle from the inside of the navel out, bevel up, then insert a 2g taper which was at least 6 inches long in length, half way through and insert the jewelry from the outside in. It seemed like a good idea, and I trusted him so I went along with it.
He asked me to pull up my shirt as he marked my navel using the back of the needle. Then asked me to lay down, cleaned the area around my navel and told me to take two deep breaths, saying on the second he would pierce it.
I took my first breath and let it out slowly, as I took my second and began to let it out I felt this surge of almost a burning feeling through my navel. Brett stops for a second and the first thing that came to my mind was oh okay that wasn't too bad, then he says, "I need to get something for more leverage," as I look down I could barely see the bevel coming through my skin. He took the taper pressed it to the back of the needle, told me to keep breathing as he pushed the needle all the way through. I just keep breathing, trying not to cry. Once the needle was through, he told me to take a minute to rest and just breath. After a few moments he came back with the taper, as he touched my stomach I could feel it tensing up all on it's own, he took the taper and pushed it half way through the hole not only did it hurt but it felt extremely uncomfortable because it was straight. He gave me an other few moments to breath when he went to get the jewelry. Asking me if I was okay, and making sure I wouldn't pass out, I told him everything was fine and that it didn't really hurt that much. (Yeah I'm a liar I know.) He came back with the jewelry and began to insert it, as he was he turned to me and told me, "oh your navel is trying to run away from me." It didn't seem to want to jewelry to be inserted; finally he got it in there and put on the o-ring. Right away it felt a million times better than it did with either the needle or the taper. I stood up, checked it out and it looked FANTASTIC. I paid Brett $20 for the piercing, he gave me the run down on the aftercare, and I continued to hang out at the shop for a few more hours afterwards.
For the first day after I got home, it was pretty swollen; and due to the blood from a larger gauge piercing my lovely violet glass piece turned an almost pinkish color. (It was pretty nice, you could look into it and see the blood.) But it wasn't sensitive to the touch or anything.
A few minutes after getting pierced. Image taken by Brett Perkins.
It's been a little over two weeks since I've gotten it done, and there is minimal redness, no swelling, almost no gunk, and to a lot of peoples surprise no bruising. Now, every time I look down at my stomach I just feel so happy, and I'm also glad that I did not listen to most of my friends suggestions to get it done at a 6g, because even now I feel as if a 4g isn't big enough and I can't wait until it heals so I can begin to stretch it. The best part of the piercing is, I feel like a whole human being again, I feel like the old Hilda. I'm not very sure of where I will go when it comes to piercing again when it comes to my body, but I can say that from now on my navel is and will be one of my favorite piercings of all time.
Two weeks after getting it pierced.