Tattoo Removal

When I turned 18 I decided that I was responsible enough to decide what I wanted. My parents had always instilled in me that tattoos are wrong, under any circumstances. So of course I ran out of the gate on my 18th birthday and got a tattoo.

I loved it.

It says 'la vita e bella' in pretty cursive writing on my side/back/hip area. (Life is beautiful, in Italian)

That worked out fine for me, so I decided to get another one on my lunch break one day. No particular reason, no great amount of thought went into it. I decided to get a heart behind my ear.

I drove until I found a tattoo place. 

No research, nothing.

This is what it looked like when I went back to work that day.

I hated it! I hated it so much, that I figured that if I did everything that the guy had told me not to do, that it would fade or something (what an idiot, right?!).

So I scrubbed it in the shower. I picked at it. I went to the tanning bed and didn't put sunscreen on it. I thought I could get rid of it.

Here's what it looked like a few days later.

Yikes!!

So, like any smart 18 year old would do, I went back to the tattoo place and got it touched up. If it was going to be there, at least it would look like something other than an open wound. 

Fast forward to several years later. The red is a faded, nasty, lumberjack-plaid looking color, the black lines are no longer clean and the whole thing is a bit deformed. I'm working on getting my masters in School Psyschology, so I have to spend time in public schools. Public schools often frown upon visible tattoos. I had to wear my hair down every time I went into one, I always have to take into consideration how it makes me look, and cover it accordingly. 

I remember being so embarrassed at my wedding when I had to cover it with makeup. 

Anyways, now I lucked into knowing a fantastic dermatologist that suggested to me that if I hate it so much, why not get it removed? He could even do the lasering himself. 

Count me in! 

We decided that he would do four treatments in one day in hopes that it would expedite the process. He gave me a lidocaine shot right over the tattoo, covered my eyes with some soggy goop and goggles, and proceeded to laser away! Then he let a student do the last two treatments (I could hear him telling him how to use the machine..talk about scary!). 

This is what it looked like right after the last session 

Yowza! 

It's been a couple of weeks now, and the red is completely faded. The black will take a bit longer to fade, and hopefully I will see results within a month or so. 

Hopefully Cam will learn from my mistake, and if she wants to get a tattoo, it will be something that truly means something to her. And won't make her cry on her wedding day.