It was sometime in the winter of '99. I was 16, in 11th grade, and about to have my medusa pierced.
At A Glance Author alexis k. Contact hcgirl@hotmail.com Artist Scott Lind Studio Scotts house Location Sackville, Nova Scotia The year before I took the plunge and got my first piercing. A 14 gauge CBR centered in my bottom lip. I loved it. So much, that later that year I went at it again and had my labret pierced. They were both pierced by Stuart Rae and they healed beautifully. When I decided I wanted my medusa pierced I immediately went back to Stu.
He took a look at my upper lip and refused to pierce me. He said something about there not being enough room, that the jewelry would hurt my gums and teeth. Hearing this, for some crazy reason, didn't phase me. I still wanted to get it pierced. Now I'd just have to go somewhere else.
My friend Scotty Lind had been piercing himself for as long as I had known him. All of his work looked good and seemed to heal just fine, so I knew what to do. I cant quite remember the exact situation. If I had talked it over with Scott earlier that
week or what...but I do remember taking the hour long bus ride out to Sackville from Halifax and kept it in mind that I was to be pierced that night.
I remember it just being Scott, our friend Nick and I. Maybe Wayne was there too..I can't remember anymore. We all sat around in this little loft above Scott's garage, freezing. It was probably midnight or later in the middle of the winter in Nova Scotia. So of course we were cold.
After sitting around for a while, which was more or less just me stalling (probably from fear) we decided to go for it. Everyone else had fallen asleep, so it kind of made it a little easier
on me. Not having lots of people looking on took some of the pressure off.
I was using a spare labret post that I had previously worn in my labret, for my new medusa. Scott was using what looked like thick sewing needles to pierce me. I trusted Scott, maybe a little too much, and didn't bother to ask if the needle was clean.
He didn't have a clamp or any other "tools". No gloves, no nothing. I brought some mouthwash with me for the morning after, and cleaned my mouth as best I could with that. So as I mentioned, we didn't have any clamps. So I pulled out my upper lip as far as I could and held it there.
Now I must warn you. Scott at this point in his piercing career had pierced mostly himself, which he said was on a level of meditation. So you can imagine pain is nothing to him. When he pierces himself he takes his time focusing on perfecting the piercing. Not worrying about the pain at all. So in saying that, you can imagine what it was like for me. A poor girl who had only been professionally pierced. Needle goes in. Needle comes out. In a matter of seconds.
So as I held out my lip, Scott slowly, (and I mean SLOWLY) forced the needle through my upper lip. This was easily the most painful thing id ever felt at this point in my life. The thirty seconds or so it took Scott to pierce me felt like an hour. I felt nauseous and began to black out. At this point I think (from what I remember) the needle was all the way through, resting on my teeth. Scott saw that I wasn't handling it well, and let me rest for a second. I don't know what good this did. I suppose it was a good idea incase I felt the need to throw up or something, but I just sat there, in pain.
As I mentioned before Scott didn't have any kind of professional piercing tools so there wasn't really anyway of following the needle through with the jewelry in a nice orderly fashion. And of course we had some trouble getting the jewelry in at all. Scott had to take the needle out completely and then try to insert the jewelry.
We started by trying to put the jewelry in through the inside-out. But I guess the skin started to close up immediately and no matter how hard Scott tried, it wasn't going to go through. We had no choice but to go through the other way. Meaning the ball would be on the inside of my mouth and the post would show. So we did this, the piercing was backwards and rather ugly...but it was over! And that's all I cared about at the time. My lip was incredibly swollen and uncomfortable making it difficult to sleep.
The next day, I awoke to see the swelling hadn't gone down at all really. I looked pretty stupid, which I later decided matched the stupidity of the idea (getting an amateur to pierce me) quite well.
I waited about a week before deciding my lip was healed enough to try to reverse the jewelry. Another stupid idea. This of course did not work at all, and ended up with me having to get my mother to hold my lip out (just as I had to with Scott) so I could put the post back in again, still backwards. This was not fun, and I don't recommend it to anyone. The skin had already started to close over so it felt like I was re-piercing my lip myself.
I waited another week, maybe more, before attempting to reverse the jewelry. This time I was in school. Sitting in my art class, bored out of my mind, I decided I was ready. I went to the
girls bathroom and carefully removed the ball from the inside of my lip. Then as fast as I could I slipped out the post and shoved it back into the inside of my lip. It worked! I screwed the ball
onto the post successfully. I ran back to class to show off my beautiful new medusa.
Now, sadly this story doesn't have a happy ending. A few weeks after that day in art class, I noticed a bump on the inside of my lip. I know now that this was simply a keloid and that I could have easily taken steps to get rid of it, but back then I was freaked out. I let it go for a few days, watching it grow and slowly creep up over the back of my labret post. At this point, I was too scared for the safety of my lip, and took out the jewelry, saying good bye forever to my medusa.