In a busy ER, short of staff and resources, why should people who have been injured or fallen ill through no fault of their own have to wait while young attention seekers have their self inflicted wounds stitched and dressed for the twentieth time?

Perhaps if these spoilt and selfish people were treated after everyone else, no matter if that means waiting three days, they’d be less likely to waste everyone’s precious time in the future.

One should reward good behaviour and punish bad behaviour. Rewarding ‘cutters’ with the attention they seek is to encourage such behaviour to their own long term detriment. If they think that victimisation they shouldn’t make themselves victims in the first place.

I personally have two tattoos myself, as well as my ears are pierced three times in my left ear, once in the right ear, and I have a labret piercing. I had a right side nose piercing but had to let it grow over.

I’ve mainly met patients who were curious about my tattoos, mainly because sometimes the lower edge of my egyptian cartouch on my right bicep does peek out from under my scrubs once in a while. I’ve had 90 year old ladies asking me about them, and if they hurt, but I’ve never recieved any sort of negative attention because of it from the patients.

Some of the Nursing staff, on the other hand, were surprised when I had gotten my labret piercing done. One or two had gone as far as making some rather disparaging comments to me, even though these were my fellow co-workers.

So what to do you when someone tells you that your piercing or tattoo is gross and that you’re a “Freak” for getting it done?

Do the same thing I did, and politely tell them to keep their mouths shut…espcially when they call you a “Freak” in front of the patients.

Not trying to rag on anyone here, but it just goes to show, that sometimes both sides of the fence can have the same problem.

Personally, I find alot of the negative attention towards tattoos or piercings are negative simply because they are irgorant or un-informed about modern body modification practices. I try my best to educate all staff from my personal experiences with tattooing and piercing, so that they can and do know that it certianly is not the same as it was back in the 70’s and 80’s. Most piercings and tattoo studios now have strict codes of material handling and body substance isolation certificates, that it’s even more difficult now get catch anything blood borne from these procedures.

I usually make it a point to ask patients who have expressed that they have piercings, if they can take them out in case they need to go for an x-ray, MRI or CT scan. Most are fairly compliant if the matter is approaced in a respectful and casual manner.

Remember, people with tattoos and piercings are people too. Just because they have these procedures done, and sometimes to extremes, doesn’t mean that they aren’t entitled to anything less than the best quality care you can provide for them.

After all, they are human too. They’re just permanently decorated humans.

~Kaylin

But tattoo stories…well, tattoos are just like scars in that every tattoo has a story. Three favorites…

First, a patient who I noticed had a tattoo on his foot. Rather than just ignore them, I try to engage the patient in conversation about them, so I mentioned to him that I thought that was interesting, since I’d never seen a tattoo on a foot before.

He immediately warmed up to this and showed it off to me with pride. It was a home made tattoo, done by himself, and sure enough he had inscribed on top of his foot, “I’m tired.” I didn’t quite know how to respond to this, so I said something along the lines of ‘that’s interesting.’

But now he was really into showing off his handiwork, and mentioned that he had one on his other foot too, as he pulled it out to show it to me too. There, on top of his other foot, he’d tattooed “Me too.”

Second story has to do with the permanence of transient feelings expressed in ink and skin. This fellow had the most extensive tattooing I’d ever seen, all over his head, face and arms, but over a large portion of his body it had been completely covered in ink. I didn’t understand this at first, since he was intubated and couldn’t really explain it to me.

As he woke and I got to see more of him, figuratively as well as literally, it became clear that he had any many bizarre and at times offensive tattoos over his entire body. As time passed, he came to feel quite differently about what these tattoos were saying about him, so he was slowly but surely taking postage sized squares and tattooing them completely black and covering up what they’d once been. His long term plan was to completely cover his body with a solid black tattoo, the only option he now had open to change his mind about what he’d once been so intent on saying in body language.

Okay, one last tattoo story, a story about the story behind the tattoo. I’d been taking care of the patient with an BKA for quite some time, and had noticed the upper half of a tattoo that had lost it’s lower half to the surgeons knife. Fortunately his daughter told me the story behind this tattoo and explained what it was all about.

She said that one time it had been a nicely done tattoo of a rooster with a noose around it’s neck swinging from a gallows. Now that she’d said this, it was clear what it had been, and she said that he’d gotten this so he could use it as a bar bet. He’d go into a bar and use it to win bets that he did indeed have a cock that hung below his knee.

I’ve really come to appreciate the degree to which a person’s tattoos can be an extension of their humanity.