| Well, I finally got started with something I've wanted to do for about
2 or 3 months... I got my first of 6 pocketings. When I'm done, hopefully,
I'll have 3 horizontal, 4 inch long barbells on the outside of each upper
arm. I've been meaning to write about this since four days ago, when it
happened, but my arm told me not to. :) I suppose I should start from the
beginning, not the end... On Wednesday, I went with two of my friends (one
of whom was Eric, my piercer, and they guy for whom I am guinea pigging
gladly) over to the house of an acquaintance, Dave, who is REALLY into
piercing. We couldn't do it at my house or Eric's house since our families
are not too keen on this sort of thing, and Eric didn't want to do it at
his normal place. I'm glad we didn't, cause it was really comfortable at
Dave's place. We went into his basement, and I sat in Dave's dentist chair
next to Eric. We talked a little more about placement, and he started to
bend the barbell so that it would sit comfortably on my arm. Instead of
using the barbells with dimpled ends like Shannon of BME used, Eric wanted
to try using regular barbells (14 ga) and balls. I don't know how big the
balls are for sure, but if anyone wants to know I can find out. Eric thinks
they're 3/16 of an inch. Anyway, I studiously stopped paying attention
to Eric right about then, and talked to Dave and Joe a lot. I could feel
it when Eric started cutting into my left arm, but it didn't hurt at all.
It was kinda odd, and that's about all I can say about it. After he finished
with the first incision, he started digging about in there to make the
pocket, and that stung a goodly amount, but not bad. He popped the bead
in, secured the barbell in place, let me look at it, and started on the
other end. He was remembering what he was doing at this point, since he
hasn't done any beading in a long time I suppose, and went much more quickly.
I'll have to say that it hurt considerably more, but took less than half
the time that the first pocket took. Not only that, but it turned out better.
So much better, in fact, that he decided to take the first one out and
do it again slightly below. In retrospect, this was a good idea, but at
the time the only thing I could thing was "ouch, dammit." This one took
even less time than the second, and then he started suturing me up. I could
hardly feel it, and I'll have to say that it wasn't at all unpleasant.
He cleaned me up, bandaged it, and we left. I must say that the ride home
was interesting. Every time we made a turn, or hit a decent sized bump,
I felt it. Stung too. From this point on I'll leave out all the boring
details, like cleaning and such, and only address the interesting. The
next day I went over to my girlfriend leanness house, and we proceeded
to do our thing. When I was getting up, I felt a sort of tearing sensation
in my arm, and I made an educated guess as to what it was. I was right.
The right ball had popped out and was sitting there. After some amount
of freaking out, we got a sewing needle, and I used the eyelet end to lift
up the skin of my arm while LeeAnn popped the ball back in. She's the squeamish
type, so she felt pretty ill by now. After that I went over to Eric's house,
and he put a butterfly on it to hold it closed and I left. No more problems
with that one. Skip to Friday night. I'm getting ready to go to bed, and
cleaning my arm. When I get to the left pocket, I notice a red spot that
looks kinda like a little cut or something. I kind of thought I knew what
would be happening next, but I couldn't think of anything to prevent it,
so I just bandaged it up like normal and went to bed. Leeann showed up
the next day to get me to go run some errands with her and such, and I
told her right off "Hold on, I want to look at my arm." I kinda knew something
was wrong. Sure enough, when I looked at the left pocket, it had torn open
above the ball, and I could see it sitting there, shiny, red, and bloody.
The sutures were still holding it together though, so I gave Eric a call.
He came over, and we talked for a bit. We decided that hopefully, it can
be persuaded to heal back together, and in furtherance of that but two
butterflies over it in an X shape, trying to pull the edges together. I
haven't been able to look at it yet, since I don't want to try taking the
butterflies off. If all doesn't go well with the one pocket, we might end
up having to take it out and redo it farther down my arm where it won't
move so much. At any rate, my hands are tired now, so I'm going to stop
now.
Jamey Price, Dark Lord of the Fish
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