Keloid Removal
At A Glance Author Sarah Contact [email protected] IAM suicides.sweetie When Five years ago Artist Plastic Surgeon Studio Hospital Location Ottawa Canada Back when I was 12 I just HAD to have my helix pierced, it was the cool thing to do in seventh grade. I think it was on the weekend or a weeknight, my mom and I had gone shopping at a local mall to pick up something for a party and we stopped in at Claire and I pointed out the sign on the window "We do Ear Piercing". Of course I begged my mom and she gave in and filled out the form with my name and age and her relation to me. Now that I think about it there were no questions about allergies or if I had any diseases. I went and chose which earring I wanted. I chose something simple like a little silver star because I thought it would be cool rather than some big ugly jewel. The girl picked the gun off the desk and blew the dust off of it. I know what you're thinking, the girl blew the dust off of it and yet she still let the girl pierce her with it...oh it gets better... She loads the jewelry into the machine and puts it up to my ear. I took a deep breathe and she pulled the trigger, the gun jammed up and the earring was half through my ear. She started freaking out, yelling for the manager, apologizing because she's never pierced before. The manager comes over and says "Oh this has happened before, just yank on the gun." So I squeeze my eyes shut and the girl RIPS the gun along with the earring out of my ear. The then tries to put the jewelry in my ear with her hands while I'm bleeding. "Don't touch it, it hurts" She pulls away from my ear and proceeds to reload the gun, saying she's ready for the other ear. Oh hell no! I told her I wasn't going to let her near me with that gun again, and got up and left.
Three months later I notice a big hard bump forming in the area where the jewelry was ripped out. I went to the doctor and she said it was just scarring, not to worry that it would go away shortly. Three years later the bump starts growing, and growing and growing. By the time I was 18 it was the size of a blueberry off of my ear. I went to see a plastic surgeon and told him I had a keloid from a piercing gone terribly wrong. He proceeded to tell me that only black people and people with dark skin could get keloids, it was impossible that's what I had. Okay, so this guy was obviously nuts, next doctor gives me grief about my other piercings and won't do the procedure because I was asking for trouble getting holes poked in me. What's with the crazy doctors!?! Finally after a few weeks I find a great guy to do the surgery. Of course now that its three years later I can't remember his name but he was a nice young man. He took a look at my ear, and told me about how we were going to cut the bugger off and make my ear beautiful.
I took a day off work and went in for the procedure around 9:30 am. He took me in around 9:45 and sat me in the big chair and got his tools out. He explained what each one was for, and how long the procedure would take. He took out a syringe and explained to me the mixture he was using to numb the area. I remember something about lidocane but I can't remember exactly what it was. After about ten minutes the area was pretty numb and I could feel no pain. I could still feel what he was doing but it didn't hurt at all. I remember the initial incision and how it felt. It's impossible to describe but it's pretty cool. The worst part was when he was removing the last bits, I remember feeling a sawing motion and the sound of Velcro being pulled apart. After it was all done he stitched me up and put a couple steri-strips on it. The whole procedure took about half an hour. He told me to come back in two weeks to have the stitches removed and gave me a prescription for some pain killers. As soon as I got home the drugs started wearing off and I was desperate to start poppin some pills. I took to Tylenol threes and went to bed. I woke up a few hours later feeling completely back to normal. Couldn't take a shower for 24 hours but that was fine, I was a grease ball back then anyways. After the two weeks I went back and had the steri-strips removed and the stitches taken out. He took a look at it and said it looked fantastic and then put another couple steri-strips on it to keep it happy for the next couple weeks.
Now I look at it and you can't even tell I have had surgery on it. Sometimes my ear aches but it's nothing back. I just recently had my ear scalpelled to �" and the piercer doing it told me there was still some scar tissue in my ear. But that's a whole other experience.