Greenstorm's Journal

I really wish it was easier to take pictures of your own back or I'd be tracking the healing process that way too. But here we are, a day and a half later, it looks awesome so far and it's obeying me insofar as scarring goes-- again, so far.

The process:

The actual cutting itself was not a big deal. I say this from the point of view of someone who has had a tattoo perilously close to my inner thigh (much harder to deal with buzzing + vibrating + pain all at once), an IUD inserted (MUCH harder to deal with, though shorter term), and who loves having needles stuck into me for fun.

Elwood used six scalpels, switching them out when they got dull, and didn't go very deep. Because it was for a workshop, he spent half an hour waving the scalpel around and talking while I lay there, and I will say I was very glad I was lying down. The actual cutting only took maybe 2 1/2 hours if that, and the intensity of it varied immensely depending on where he was on my body. My arm barely felt it-- it felt like something sharp, but it didn't even feel necessarily like something sharp enough to break skin. This is in sharp contrast to a point overtop of my shoulderbone, which felt really sharp and deep and cutting, and to the big flower over my shoulderblade. There was also a rough strip near my armpit.

I was definitely surprised at where it hurt. There's a spot on your back where you push your fingers in if you want to kind of grab under your shoulderblade-- that was the single worst place, I think. And why the middle of my shoulder? It seems like wherever we were close to bone it hurt more.

I was also interested by the range of sensation involved. Some parts I almost did not feel (I don't think this was just an endorphin thing), some parts were sharp (which is a sensation I find fun) and some were kind of burning/flaying and excruciating (which to me is another kind of fun when you come right down to it. Altogether, it hurt *much* less than my tattoos did. With my tattoos, my muscles kept randomly twitching and it was a matter of gritting and tunnel-visioning through it. With this, I could pay attention to how it felt almost the whole way through instead of having to distract myself.

Immediate Aftercare:

Let's put the level of pain this way: the area got wiped down with saline afterwards, which felt like water. I asked if we could try something stingy on it, thus the hydrogen peroxide picture in the previous post, but that didn't actually feel like anything. Tillie threatened to get the salt, but we ended up with rubbing alcohol. Putting the rubbing alcohol in at the end was the part of everything that hurt the most, and I did that deliberately for the sensation, it wasn't medically required. So, that's where we're at with pain levels.

I went home with nonstick bandages on and managed not to scab around the sheets. I kept hydrated and ate both before and after, but I'm still very glad I got a ride home. I was pretty out of it at that point, though clearer-headed than I was with both bridge piercing and tattoo.

The next day:

The next day I showered (not as painful as I thought just to have water on it). Already I was getting alarmed by how quickly things seemed to be healing-- that morning I couldn't see any scabs or blood, just very thin red lines. Keep in mind this was a very sharp impliment used, no dirt on it at all, and everything was a clean cut. I scar frequently, but I don't frequently get cuts this clean.

I very gingerly tried my exfoliating mitt on the area with lots of baby wash soap. The same areas hurt and didn't hurt as when I was getting the cutting-- soft close-to-armpit skin on my back and right over the shoulderblade is the sorest. I could actually scrub pretty hard without too much trouble. I don't know if anyone out there has actually been injured, but because this was so surface and so shallow my body felt pain, but it didn't get that indignant 'hey, something is -wrong-' feeling you often get when poking around wounds. I scrubbed medium-hardness until I got as much actual bleeding as I could over as much of the cut surface as I could, to sort of reopen everything.

I highly recommend an unsqueamish partner if you're doing your back here. Angus doesn't like seeing my blood, so I was on my own for pretzeling to scrub hard enough at my back (while processing the pain from that part of it).

Shower done, I sprayed everything with hydrogen peroxide (Angus helped here) to reopen and irritate the cuts some with the bubbles, packed everything with vaseline as an extra irritant, and wrapped it in saran wrap. Still the peroxide didn't hurt. Oddly, the saran wrap stung for awhile.

I headed to a tanning booth at one point, and plan to go back a couple of times-- I know sunlight makes me scar more than anything else, and we have none of the natural variety here.

That's basically been my modus operandi-- scrub with the mitt if things look like they're healing fast, pack with vaseline (except today when I let it dry out so I can help Angus move some stuff into storage), spray with hydrogen peroxide after scrubbing. It's glorious to have something where I can scratch when it gets the healing itch (as long as my hands are clean) and it will make it better instead of wrecking it.

I have complete and total free movement of my arms with no problem at all, it barely aches-- when I'm not actively distressing the wounds it feels at worst like a low-grade sunburn and frequently like nothing at all.

Today, a day and a half later, we put peroxide in after the morning shower and it stung like a bitch. Who knows what that means? It's starting to look more like pinky scars instead of just irritated skin, so I'm gonna keep on keeping on. There will be touch-ups in a few weeks.