serenity tattoo – one week later
sleeping that first night was quite a challenge. i slept lightly and fitfully. if i wasn’t bumping it and causing pain, i was waking up because i wasn’t causing myself pain and therefore concerned something was wrong. i washed and A&D’d it fairly dilligently for the first couple of days. it was still pretty raw and was so tender that i couldn’t really rub the A&D lotion in as deeply as the directions suggested. i ended up sliming all sorts of things and bumping it throughout my day at work. i wouldn’t have thought i did so much with the inside of my left wrist as i discovered i did.
at one point on friday it just stopped hurting (save that middle section). no more burning, no more tenderness, just an embossed word sitting on my skin. but then…the itching!!!
i don’t know if it’s the location or the style of the tattoo (all those thin lines make for a mean amount of “surface area” while it’s healing), but man did this thing itch for a while. it’s almost done now, probably because most of the first wave of healing is over. i’m assuming there are waves anyway. i just know that for the most part it’s flat like part of my skin. the “n” (the darkest, thickest line) is still a bit puffy and still itches. it’s also still a bit tender, which isn’t surprising since it’s the spot that hurt the most.
i think i over-lotioned it, however. i was a bit concerned about dryness and cracking causing the tattoo to blur, so i made sure it was always moist. on sunday, i left the house for longer than i expected to without bringing any lotion with me. i made do at my father-in-law’s house that evening with some lotion that was fragrance free, but oil-based instead of water. when i woke up on monday i had red pimply dots around the tattoo, but thankfully not too much within it. it also didn’t itch, so the internet led me to believe that i had just put too much moisture in it (and then sealed it with the oil-based lotion), and it needed someplace else to go. i watched it for a couple of days and was sure to lotion it only enough to keep it from drying out and the bumps quickly faded.
i am quite pleased with the tattoo itself. i’ve noticed a couple of places where there’s a stray line or a bit of a wobble. you’d have to be looking very closely with a very critical eye to see them, however, and they’re fading as the swelling/scabbing goes away.
a part of me still can’t believe that i did it. i mean, there’s a tattoo on my wrist! i don’t look at the tattoo and think “dear god, what have i done?” but i do look at it and wonder what will happen if some day i regret it. i still kind of wish it was upside down, though, even though i feel i made the right decision. it looks nice and is easy to appreciate from my perspective, but when i look at it by twisting my arm around or in a mirror, it looks much better.
i’ll be posting a few more pictures on flickr that have captured the healing process (bumps and alll) in the next few days, so stay tuned ;)
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