i'm an idiot

big, fat, raving fucking moron. delivery of neodymium implant components came Friday, me skipping lectures to make sure it got there, and i proceeded Saturday to w3dyt's to sterilise his bathroom as well as we could and get the fuck on with it. got everything all set up, all the instruments sterilised and the first magnet - mine - sitting in its blob of biocide ready to be inserted. i'd taken a few pictures of all the dressings and scalpels and shit we were using, since i'm gonna be writing tutorials as i go, handed the cam to w3dyt, who sat on the toilet seat filming, washed and technicare'd my hands, gloved up and picked up the no.24 blade to make the first incision. i pricked my skin gently to test the sharpness before i started.

that's when i found out what's happened to my pain tolerance. i literally couldn't make myself put enough pressure on the scalpel to make a proper incision - i tried a few light strokes to make a shallow one and i actually made myself cry. i can't remember that kind of pain since my last real surgery, and i thought i'd never feel anything like that again. well, fuck you, dihydrocodeine addiction, and fuck you, opiate-adapted brain. i had about 180mg of codeine, 10g paracetamol and around 60mg of DHC in my system - enough to kill some people - and it might as well have been Smarties for all it did for me.

well, i figured i couldn't fucking stop there, even if it hurt like a cunt. problem was, there was too much pain using the no.3 scalpels we'd intended to carve out the implant cavity with for me to actually hold the blade, and there was no way in hell w3dyt was gonna do it with the chance of me reflexively jerking my hand away from him and severing half my goddamn fingertip.

so we got a paring knife outta the kitchen, sharpened it with a chef's steel, and cold-sterilised it with technicare. i got w3dyt to hold my hand down - it's bruised to fuck now; he weighs about twice as much as i do - and press it sideways into the shallow incision i'd cut, as hard as he could.

it was a fucking good thing i told him to ignore the screaming. we had to insert the knife like that twice, jiggling it around inside the wound to make a cavity, and the second one hit the loop of nerve that runs under the fingertip. after that, i had to use scissors to excise the globbets of flesh that were still in the hole. the whole process took more than an hour and by the end i'd been screaming for so long i'd run out of voice. the insertion was even harder, took longer than the cuts did. amazingly i was conscious through the whole thing, and we did it without any anaesthesia. almost 20hrs later the whole site is still throbbing under the layers of steristrips and Mepore dressings.

after we'd finished mine and bound the edges of the wound, which are still further apart than i'm comfortable with, we took a break, and at about 2am we started on w3dyt. that was easier, seeing as i'm damn good with a scalpel on other people, and took three deep strokes to make the initial incision, plus three punches with the knife to cut out a cavity. inserting the magnet was just as hard as it was with me, although the wound was nicely closed at the end. i didn't have any suture kits or i'd have stitched them both up.

three excruciating hours there, and it takes a pro about thirty seconds tops. why?

it's because of the needles. i was under the impression that a needle was slower, but hell no - it makes the cavity and the incision at the same time, meaning no fucking about inside the wound trying to make it bigger. i'm not doing any more implants until my order of piercers' 5mm needles gets here, and to be honest, i was kind of retarded to even try this procedure without. both of our implants are functioning, but i wouldn't be surprised if shit got infected. doing it alone is not for the weak.