When I was nine, my earlobe split in half.

I was sitting on the couch, playing Pokemon (that was about all I did as a nine-year-old) and when I got up, I noticed my Minnie-Mouse earring sitting on the pillow. I assumed it must've just fallen out and I wasn't too concerned.

When I looked closer, though, I noticed the back was still on it. I was a little more worried then, but my ear didn't hurt at all so I still wasn't panicking. I just picked it up and went into the bathroom.

I looked in the mirror and moved back my hair to see that my earlobe had been split in half. There was no blood or any sort of redness or pain, or really anything that showed something bad was happening. There was just a line underneath where my earring had been, where there just wasn't any cartilage or skin anymore.

I screamed because that's the only reasonable reaction a nine-year-old would have when their earlobe is missing. It was a little dramatic, given I wasn't in any actual pain but, regardless, I ran out into our dining room, sobbing. My dad tried to calm me down enough to figure out what was wrong.

Once he realized what was going on, he asked if I had ripped it or if it hurt and I said I was completely fine. Still, I was sobbing while we rushed into the car and tried to go to urgent care. We got there and the doctors had no clue what had happened and just told us to visit our family doctor to look more into the situation, especially given I wasn't experiencing any pain.

A few weeks later, we went to the family doctor and I got some stitches and was told it'd eventually go back together. I still didn't understand what had really happened, I just knew I had some sort of rare infection that caused it.

However, now that I'm older, that is a very interesting idea to me. Infections are often associated with pain and discomfort, but I never had any of that. I was always diligent in cleaning my earrings and watching to make sure everything was looking alright, and I never noticed anything strange or felt anything strange.

In any case, the stitches didn't work. I'm not a doctor so I have no idea why, but I went to another doctor who tried a different kind of stitches, and then finally I had to go to a plastic surgeon, who just had to put my ear back together.

It was a very short "surgery", but it did fix my ear after walking around for months with bright blue stitches in it. Now I have a perfectly whole earlobe, with a little pink line where it was once split. I was even told I could get my ear pierced again if I wanted to, although it'd have to be in a different spot (I haven't done that. I think I've had enough missing earlobes for one lifetime).

So, that's the story of how I had plastic surgery as a nine-year-old and how I accumulated a ludicrous amount of pictures of bright blue stitches on my DSi.