Megan My Industrial Piercing (Pierced Feb. 11,2004) Being a seventeen year old girl that practices body modification in a devoutly religious state isn't always a walk in the park. Though I have just started out, due to some resistance on the part of my dad, even the few things that I have done so far have caused me to meet with some challenges. My navel doesn't bother people. My eyebrow is testing their limits. My newest piercing, people can't seem to understand, and I don't quite understand what is so strange about it. Ever since I was twelve years old, I have been interested in body modification. Needless to say, I was too young to do anything about it, so I had plenty of time to research it, and to find out all I could about it. I found BME through my internet travels early on, and from there, YMA. As I looked through photos, many piercings caught my interest. (Tattoos have always fascinated me, but I am in the process of designing my own. When I turn eighteen, I will get something that I want, and that means something to me that I have thought through.) The list of piercings that I wanted grew longer and longer. My navel was pierced when I was fourteen. I waited almost three years before getting anything else. My eyebrow came next, but it wasn't enough for me. I had to get an industrial. My dad gave me $200 for my seventeenth birthday, and I figured that now was as good of a time as any. My mom knew the moment that she found out what dad had given me, what it was that I wanted. She asked me, "What are you going to get pierced now," in a good-natured way. I explained to her what I wanted, and when she didn't understand, I showed her photos of what it looked like. We made plans to do it on her next day off. Due to a nasty fall down the stairs, (Yes, I am so very graceful) she ended up taking me to the doctor on Tuesday the eleventh of February with a sore foot. He sent me for some x-rays, and the hospital just happened to be right near my favorite piercing studio. I asked mom if we could do it that day, and she agreed, so we left the hospital, we headed straight for Blue Boutique. Jesse wasn't there, because he had gone back home for some lunch, but the girl that was working there said he would be back any minute. My mom and I looked around while we waited, and once he got there, I told him what I wanted to get done. He stood beside me and was looking my ear over, asking me what angle I wanted it to be at, and started looking for the right jewelry. (They began to think that the size I needed wasn't there, but it was marked wrong. Jesse found it after a few minutes.) He explained to me that because of the way my ear was shaped, he had to bend the barbell a little to make sure it doesn't start to make an indent in my ear. I told him that was fine. I filled out the paperwork as my and my mom's driver's licenses were scanned, then paid the $72 dollars, and waited for him to sterilize the jewelry and his tools. After around ten minutes, he came back out to get me, and we walked back to his piercing room. I sat on his piercing table as he donned a pair of latex gloves and began to mark the entrance and exit holes as he explained the procedure to me. Once they were to his satisfaction, he asked me to go look in his floor-length mirror to see if they looked good to me. He handed me a pocket-sized mirror to help me see better, and he asked me how they looked. He changed his gloves. I told him they looked good, but would look better once there was metal in them. He laughed. He asked me to lay down and tilt my head almost all the way to the left. He removed the needle from the package and lubricated it along with the jewelry after laying a piece of cloth, which reminded me of the infamous drool-bibs that dentists use, that had a hole in it around my ear. He told me to breathe deeply and slowly. He told me I would feel a pinch as he set up, and my mom started squeezing my hand... HARD. He asked me to take one more deep breath, and told me that he would push the needle through as I exhaled. I took a breath in, and as I began to let it out, he pushed the needle through. I was amazed by how much pressure it took for him to pierce it, but seeing as how it was cartilage, I guess it shouldn't have come as too much of a shock. The pain was not as bad as I thought it was, but I was preparing for the worst part of it. Most people that I have asked, said that the second hole hurt much worse than the first. He set up for the second one almost immediately after the first, and asked me to breath in again. He pushed the needle through the second hole, and reached to the table next to him where he had gauze ready. My mom looked sick. It bled quite a bit, but according to him, less than average. Once he had cleaned up most of the blood, he pulled the needle out and began to slide the jewelry in. He waited for a second after pushing it through the first hole so that I wasn't hurting too much, then pushed it through the second and screwed on the ball. He cleaned the rest of the blood up, and told me to sit up slowly. He said that sometimes people get a little light-headed after industrials. I sat up and looked in the mirror. It looked awesome. I love the placement, and the angle it sits on. I couldn't be happier with it. I get mixed reactions about it, anywhere from curiosity, to disgust, though I am proud of it, so the reactions I get don't mean much to me. I do this for myself, not for anyone else. The pain level was more than my other piercings, but not unbearable, and only temporary. After only two days, I am able to sleep on it without much pain, and the aftercare is easy. At first, I thought it would be hard to clean around the shaft of the barbell, but it isn't. I would recommend it to anyone. Now I just hope that it heals quickly, and well, so I can go and have another piercing experience to enjoy. If you have any questions, or want to see pictures, than just e-mail me. :) (Megan @ Sweetie394@hotmail.com)