At A Glance
Author	Chelli
Contact	chelsea_291@hotmail.com
When	Three months ago
Artist	Shane
Studio	Altered Native
Location	Georgetown Ontario

My name is Chelsea. I live in a small town called Georgetown in Southern Ontario. I'm in grade 10 and work at a local pizza place selling pizza. I first got into the whole piercing idea when I got my nose pierced when I was thirteen years old. I already had two lobs on each side done. I started reading about the history of piercing, where they came from, and everything behind them, it made me respect them so much more. Then I got hooked, and kept getting more and more, before I knew it, I have my nose, (left ear) tragus, and four lobs, (right ear) helix, conch, and three lobes. Which leads me to the last two piercings, top and bottom of my navel

I have wanted to pierce my navel for as long as I could remember, however I was only interested in the top because that's all I really knew that a person could pierce. When I went into the shop in my town that does piercing and tattoo's I saw like a chart that shows allot of the piercings one can do, I became interested in piercing my bottom and top of my navel. Then my boyfriend gave me this website address so I could check out more about it. I did it because I wanted to; I thought the idea of having was really cool, even if nobody would see it but me.

Well when I got there my boyfriend, my friend Sam and two other people came with me, I had to go on my lunch break from school, and well they just wanted to come with me so the more the merrier. I went in Sam came with me my boyfriend waited at the door and the other two waited outside of the piercing room in the shop area. They started with the top. They did a pretty standard procedure. I couldn't see what was going on, that kind of bothered me I like to see what is happening to me, but oh well. He clamped it, that part was not badly painful, but very cold, and the needle went through, then the barbell, on and done. Not too bad, didn't hurt too much, barley felt it, as long as the bottom went that smooth I'd be okay. I got a little more nervous, because what I want to do with these piercings is have one long barbell go through both piercings (as long as they don't migrate). I told my pierce this he said okay, but I will have to go slower with the needle on the bottom one and it may hurt a bit, I just said go for it, I don't care. He said, "Okay try not to move". On went the clamp, some discomfort. Slowly went through the needle, and out came the screams from my mouth. I barley even made a noise at all my other 12 piercings, but this one had considerable more pain than the others. The barbell was in and it was done. The adrenaline rush from getting the two piercings done at the same time made me kind of weak and shaky. There was an apprentice watching me get pierced, he looked at me and gave me some water and said "man your tough shit, I've done some majour stuff to myself and piercing the bottom of my navel would never be one of them, and by the sounds you made, that bottom one hurt allot more than anything and you took it like a pro" that made me feel allot better. They were really nice, let me take my time out of my chair, made sure I had people to walk me back to school, and gave me all the after care instructions. After I left my boyfriend told me that apparently my sounds of pain, didn't sound like pain, they sounded like I was in extreme pleasure. Apparently people in the store walked up to my other friends and asked what was going on. When I walked out from the back people were looking at my weird, I didn't understand why until my boyfriend told me what they said, and what I sounded like. All I could say was hey I am a Masochist.
The aftercare procedure was two choices. Salt water twice a day or Dragon Mist 6 times a day. Because of my busy work and school she dual I decided the salt water would be best. I used it for a while, noticed my skin around the piercing was getting dry and puss was drying around it. He told me to lay off the salt water because it was drying out my piercing and to try the dragon mist. So I did, 4-6 times a day, first using water and q-tips to clean off the "crusties" then spraying on Dragon Mist. It made it heal so much faster, well the outside around the piercing at least, no more puss and dry skin. I know the inside of the piercing will still take a while to heal, but that is expected with any navel piercing, but its looking 100% better. So I'd advise people not to use sea salt but try something like Dragon Mist, with natural ingredients in it like Tea Tree Oil.

I love the end result of my navel piercings. Now in total I have 13 piercings. I would definitely do it again, I love the adrenaline rush, I wouldn't do anything differently if I did it over again accept not use sea salt, that was a waste of money. It's definitely effected how other people look at me, some hate it, and some really love it and want to do it themselves. People can have their opinions, I love it. Maybe sometime in the future I have been toying with the idea of piercing the two sides, and getting N,S,E,W tattooed on my stomach so I could be like a compass, well the compass thing was a joke my friends started, but it might not be a bad idea.