Getting my cartilage pierced felt like a new era for me. I was this whole new person and it made me think about myself differently. It gave me this whole new type of confidence.

You might be thinking, "Wow, all this drama just for a cartilage piercing."

But honestly, I felt like a badass.

Thinking of these cartilage piercings and planning them out was one thing, but actually being able to get them was a whole other ball game. I wouldn't say my parents are the strictest parents out there but I also wouldn't say they are the most easygoing. After many, many discussions and arguments, somehow I convinced them that I absolutely needed this for myself (all it took was referencing the daughter of our neighbors who had already gotten her own cartilage pierced).

The piercing process itself went pretty smoothly. Since I was getting a double helix piercing, I knew it would be more painful. When the whole piercing process was over, all I was told was to clean it with a sea salt solution. Because I'm a little dumb, I didn't think to ask about specifics and girl, I really wish I had.

The first time I had to clean the area after initially cleaning up the blood, I looked up the sea salt to water ratio and also the best cleaning method. I thought just doing the sea salt soak would be good enough.

Unfortunately, within a few days, it got infected.

I didn't want to believe it was an infection so I called my piercer. He told me that I should have been cleaning the area with the solution using q-tips, which I hadn't been doing. I used warm compresses to reduce the swelling but when it wasn't going down, I knew I had to see a doctor and I was absolutely dreading what she would say. She said I had to take it out but I guess I thought of it as a suggestion and proceeded to leave my earrings in and just took antibiotics (disclaimer: this didn't harm me but I can't say that leaving in earrings when your doctor told you not to is the best course of action for other people). I continued to do all of the above but this time, my amazing friend helped me with all the gross cleaning on the back of my ear that I couldn't see.

One very important note for people who have family in other countries: Do not get your new piercing around the time you visit them. Going to India at the beginning of summer, when my piercing was still two months old, was an enormous mistake. I don't know why I didn't expect hands on my ear, twisting and turning my piercings. In my family, this type of piercing was fairly novel so I had to practice dodging throughout my vacation which was not easy considering my not-so-great reflexes. From those experiences, I got a wonderful bump on my top cartilage piercing (which is still very much present). It's not painful but I am hoping it will go away on its own eventually.

There have been so many instances where people have accidentally bumped/pulled my piercings and even times when I have done that because I forgot they were there. All these things keep adding months to my initial healing time of six months to a year. Now I am not too sure when exactly I'll be fully healed, if ever. Every time I think my piercings are getting better and don't feel as sore anymore, within a few hours my thoughts change.

No matter how many problems I have had with my piercings, I don't regret getting them at all.

Even though after all I have been through I probably should. Getting my cartilage pierced was something I wanted to do for the longest time and for some reason I'm still hopeful that everything will be OK and I'm sure that anyone else going through this situation will feel the same.