Why?

Anyways, I got back home and thought about it. I looked up some information on the internet, but I did not stumble onto anything too useful. My friend Brenda told me about Extremus, which advertised in The Pitch, a local alternative weekly newspaper. I picked up a copy of The Pitch and found their ad. I checked out the website for Extremus and found it very informative. (Unfortunately, it is no longer active.)

The next day, I went down to Extremus during lunch to check it out. It is only 9-10 blocks away from where I work. They answered my questions and told me the whole process only takes about 20 minutes. I could do it during lunch, and then go back to work. Since I was there, I decided to go for it!

From their selection of jewelry, I had wanted a barbell type. They explained that for initial piercings, they only use rings (those facilitate the healing process). Most of the rings had a bead on them. I didn't care for those too much. Too flashy. I just wanted a simple, old-fashioned American nipple ring, the kind your mother used to wear. I ended up with a fairly plain, 12-gauge titanium ring.

The piercer's name was Mick. He was the one mentioned in their web page, so that made me feel more comfortable for some reason, even though he looked like a freak. He took me into the piercing room. It was very much like a room at the doctor's, except that he had a cd player up on the shelf and one of those 3-D pictures on the wall (I have yet to see the image on one of those things!). After removing my shirt, I sat up on the "doctor's" table and Mick took a felt tip pen and marked the spots where the piercing would go. He had me look in the mirror to verify that they were "straight." He then prepped the area with some solution. He told me that he was going to pull the needle out of it's wrapper and that I could look away if I wanted. I'm used to needles, so I didn't really look away, although I didn't catch a glimpse of the needle. I'm now glad that I didn't. He told me to take some deep breaths and to let him know when I was ready. I asked him how long it would take, and he said about a second. I told him I was ready, and he did it.

Did it hurt?

The bleeding eventually stopped, and Mick put a large square bandage over the wound. I donned my shirt, paid for my new acquisition ($30 for the piercing, $40 for the jewelry), and went back to work. I was quite sore. I told my co-workers about what I did, and they couldn't believe I did it. After awhile, I started to bleed through my shirt (a Ralph Lauren Chaps shirt, no less), and I was really embarrassed. I went to the bathroom to clean up as best I could. I had taken a late lunch, so the end of the day came soon enough.

I went home and took off my shirt. (I doused the blood spots with ERA. That really does work on getting out protein stains!) The bandage was full of blood. It had somewhat clotted and was exactly the color and consistency of cherry pie filling. (Gross!) I had lots of trouble getting the bandage off because the blood was sticking to my chest hair. I needed to remove the bandage to clean it up and stop additional bleeding. Pulling off the blood-soaked bandage from the chest hair probably aggravated the wound a lot. (I would suggest shaving the area first next time.) I finally got the bandage off, and it took me awhile to clean up the rest of the blood. I was bleeding a lot. It wouldn't stop. I laid down on the couch with a bunch of tissue. It took over an hour for the bleeding to finally stop. I kept thinking that I'd have to go to the emergency room to stop the bleeding!

I got up after it stopped and got on the computer for a little bit before getting ready for bed. I'd occasionally move in such a way that blood would spurt from the wound. I felt like I was lactating or something! Even that stopped after awhile.

Before going to bed, I needed to thoroughly clean the area and rotate the ring some as part of the normal twice-a-day cleaning. There was a lot of dried-on blood. I didn't think it would ever get clean enough to rotate the ring. I finally just let some of the solution soak on the dried-blood for about 5 minutes. That did the trick. I was quite elated to have the wound all cleaned up.

I slept fine through the night, and I had no more real bleeding problems. I put a bandaid over it just in case I started bleeding at work, but I didn't need it.

The wound was really sore for about 2 weeks, but there were no signs of infection, which is good. It took several months for the wound to completely heal.

Why the left nipple?

Where did I get the bear?

~ Disclaimer ~