What makes you happy ?

It was Rachel Larratt a couple of days ago.

Girl almost died in crash as navel stud shot through her ‘like a bullet’

The seatbelt she was wearing forced the metal stud through her body almost to her spine, causing serious internal injuries. … also left the student with facial injuries and blood on her brain. But the most serious injuries occurred as a result of her piercing.
This is not good.

If it had not been for the piercing, she would not have been in a life-threatening situation.
No. If it had not been for the crash, or her wearing a “stud”, or her wearing the lap belt as she did, or her being so skinny. Many factors, not one.

Infections and other complications because of piercings are thought to cost the NHS up to £1.5 million a year.
5 years ago the NHS budget was 48 BILLION. In fact, Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust raised that amount in parking charges alone. So that £1.5 million isn’t anything really is it?

… that his step-daughter was determined to make others with piercings aware of the possible risks.
What’s she going to do? March on Parliament? Demand changes to legislation? Have a Support group? Give her 6 weeks and she won’t care less.

Infection is the main risk associated with body piercing. If hygiene standards are not adequate, those with piercings can catch hepatitis and HIV
Now this – pardon my language – is absolute bollocks. I’ve been pierced over 50 times if not more, I know people with many piercings done by many people and none have HIV and none have Hep A B or C. That sentence is scaremongering. It’s crap.

“If hygiene standards [insert place] are not adequate” …
- [restaurant] then you can get hepatatis, salmonella, e.coli 157, listeria etc.
- [hospital] then you can get MRSA and hospital acquired infections or dead
- [your own kitchen] you can get salmonella, listeria, e.coli 157, other gastro-intestinal disturbances
- [swimming pool] you can get verrucas, conjunctivitis
- [anywhere] [practically anything]

So to summarise that news article from the Times Online:
- the girl had an accident and got hurt but not entirely by the navel jewellery
- NHS Direct haven’t a clue.
and lastly, but most importantly – it’s not a stud. Not.a.stud. IF it WAS a stud then she deserves everything she got because she really should have got a clue.
Oh yes – and Times Online need to write better articles on bodyart.

At least the BBC don’t trot out the NHS twaddle, though they do end with “Have you had a negative experience of body piercings?” And here was me thinking they gave a balanced view….

I’m sure Claire linked to this somewhere in the past but this post makes for disturbing reading. It must also have some implications for bodyart galleries by studios. It must also surely have implications for IAM members and Modblog readers (last 2 links are NSFW). Nasty laws.

So several weeks after the order, it arrives. I ordered the one on the left. I got the one on the right.
I would not have bought the one on the right. At all. So is it worth the pain of trying to change it? No idea yet.

Wildcat. To be avoided.
Wildcat. Slow and wrong.

They are still – just like in years past – still utterly crap.

Took about 4 hours. Because the basics were done Neil was able to complete as he moved from top to bottom there was no tattooing over already angry areas which meant the whole experience was less painful. The colour has doubled which is what I wanted and should be brighter when it’s settled. The few photos in-progress were spoilt by the flash and this isn’t so good. When it calms I’ll do better. (There’s a lot more than you can see!)

And I feel like I have the flu.

I shall feel ill all day 28 June. I know this because on 27 June I will be having the tattoo on my right arm completed. Neil has said he will stay until the job is done. Given the length of time since it was started it’s about bloody time too :) So it’s in at 3pm, they shut at 5pm and I think Neil is looking at 9pm as a finish – that’s with a food break in there too.
I say I’ll feel ill because I have done after each occasion I have had work done on my arm. Feels like flu. Horrible. So this time I’ll prepare with sleep, no caffeine, decent food. I really don’t see it helping but I’ve got to try.
Must take some decent music too. If the camera on my phone was better I could moblog the process.
I think he thinks I want a lot more work than I really do though. Some small details would be good, one very small patch needs re-doing but all I really want is colour. Not Pop-Art stuff, but I do want vibrancy in there. If I can complete the image in my head of what I want my left arm to be like I’ll nag about that too.
It’s good timing though. It gives 21 days before I head over to San Francisco for WordCamp so the worst of the scabbing should be over.

Ordered a couple of 22mm double flared tunnels from Pisces Body Jewellery on ebay. Ordered sunday, arrived this morning. Faultless. Absolutely perfect they are. High polish, feel good – as picky as I can be these are damn fine tunnels. And at just over 7 quid inc delivery that’s a bargain. So now I have big shiny lobes. Streamlined :)
And as Wildcat are so woefully inadequate in the stock and ‘keeping the customer informed’ dept I managed to find an 8mm double flared tunnel for the conch piercing in my left ear. So that too has been inserted and I can again drop straws and other items through the hole should the situation warrant (usually when P’s friends are around and I’m being ‘shown off’).
All I need now is the custom 7mm plugin for the tongue and things will be good.

Sunday May 27 I order a barbell from Coldsteel.
Wednesday May 30 it arrives recorded delivery.
Given that the Monday was a bank holiday that’s as quick as I could expect.

Sunday May 27 I order a double flared tunnel from Wildcat.
…… and that’s it.
No goods, no email, no nothing.

Guess where I won’t be spending any money again.

Update: 2 emails later I’m told they have no stock and it’s 2-3 weeks until they get anything in. Now why they can’t put that on their site OR send me an email before now is something only they can answer. It’s not a major purchase, it’s not a lot of money – but it’s not good anyway. Customers using telepathy for stock levels isn’t entirely reliable last time I checked.

I sleep facing the mouth of the cave. Every room that me and J have slept in I take position between her and the door – or if on holiday between her and any large outside / garden doors. It might be one of those ‘men are from mars’ or manwatching things but it is how it is. I can no more go to sleep with my back to the door than I can climb a rope. (One thing at school I never ever could do. I could see and understand the mechanics but when it came to the practice my progress was zero). Anyway, I either sleep facing the door or on my back ready to spring into action (that’s the theory). I go through phases, I suppose most people do, of having to sleep in one position for periods of time. If I got into bed and tried to go to sleep lying on my back when my head wants to lie on the side then lying on my back just isn’t an option. I could lie on my back for hours and hours, but turn to my side and bang I’m in dreamland. Or the other way around.
Years ago – must be 12+ or more – I had a scaffold piercing in my right ear. It’s the one that has 2 holes connected by one long bar on the back top edge of the ear. It’s never given me any trouble. With that in mind I decided that I wanted some chunkier metal in there and last weekend ordered a 2.4mm * 40mm bar. It arrived yesterday. The top hole in my ear managed to be stretched gently using a taper and the new bar (the original was 1.6mm) was slid through. An increase of .8 seems little….. it’s not. The second hole wasn’t keen on the stretch. It was also at a funny angle for the bar. The taper was fine as it was free at both ends. The new bar also had eternal threading. It was really tricky to get the bar angled right, introduce it to the hole and then gently push.
The cartilage is quite thin there so it bends easily and not always the right way. The skin there also slides around a bit so while the start was around the bar, the end wasn’t being aimed correctly. So my ear was getting a little bit upset as it was. I asked P to check behind my ear and she said she could see some steel in there, so I gently pushed again… I had to give it a little more nudge than I would have preferred but it did go. And it hasn’t been happy since.
I have – and yes I know it’s all my fault – a persistent throbbing pain in my outer ear which is dulled by ibuprofen but not removed. I know it will settle in time. The problem is that I need to sleep too. My body and my head want to sleep facing the door. My ear is letting me know that isn’t such a clever idea. I can’t sleep on my back so I have to strategically place the pillows and my right arm to allow my ear to touch nothing at all as I drift off. Which I do for all of a few minutes before something moves and my ear gives me a big “Remember me?”. Last night I got hardly any sleep. It hurts just as much tonight – if not more actually – so I’m in for more of the same it seems. If I wasn’t in ‘guard the mouth of the cave’ mode I might stand a chance….. maybe caffeine and FFVII could get me through instead.. it is Friday after all…

Pierce and stretch ear lobes? Easy.
Same with ear cart? I’d forgotten just how ouchy this is.

I forgot to note that the chunk of steel above now inhabits the intended place. Fairly easy stretch too. (10mm diameter)

That is pretty much the last piercing I wanted stretched. Lobes are good at 22mm, nipples I’m thinking of complete removal (of the steel, not the flesh) and others aren’t on my agenda really. Counting now I have 13 active from around 40 at it’s peak I think. Add the failed ones it must pass 50 piercings. If nothing else I must have spent heaps on body jewellery – and I know I gave loads away in one very short manic period a few years ago. But then I’d not need it now so it matters not. I need to update my bodyart page and I really should get my act together and upload more photos too – what with the changing of computers I’m still undecided as to how to handle images. Though with Parallels I could do what I did on the PC but that feels like cheating.

So for all the scars from failed piercings, the money spent on steel to go in them, the reactions – both good and bad – of others, the healing processes, the body image change I went through in getting them and now in losing them do I regret anything? Would I do different? No, of course not. It was a necessary part of my life and it was ultimately a very beneficial part too. ‘Piercing Therapy’ if you will. And anyway – it’s only skin.