Back in 2009, I got this heart-and-skull, Tokidoki tattoo behind my ear. Admittedly, it wasn’t really a well thought-out tattoo like most of my other ones. Marleea had just passed away that morning, and I don’t remember Laura’s reasoning, but I agreed to go get a tattoo with her, and ended up with this. Personally, I like it. But as I get to a point in my life where the thought of sitting in a cubicle for the rest of my life (or at least the next 30 years) makes me twitch, it might be time for this tattoo to go.

At least part of it. The short of it is, I’m looking at teaching English overseas in Japan, China and/or South Korea, and as far as Japan goes, tattoos are still seriously taboo, and having one that’s not as easy to cover up with clothing is going to hurt my chances at landing a job. So since red is naturally easier to cover up than black, the cross-bones are at least gonna go.

I Googled “tattoo removal” and found a few locations around San Diego. I opted for one because of all the positive reviews it got, and emailed them about a consultation. I was invited in to the clinic (which is actually IN a tattoo shop… which is kinda weird to me.) for a consultation. So I drove in on my lunch break since it’s only 15 minutes from my office, and spoke to the nice front desk receptionist who went over the price packages and what I could expect both from the treatment (including possible blisters) and recovery (at least 6-weeks between treatment). They happened to have a pretty good deal going on for pre-paying for the first three packages, so I signed up to return the following week. You can Google “how tattoo removal works”, I found it pretty interesting. But basically what happens is, the laser hits the ink under your skin, which breaks the ink up into smaller particles that your while blood cells can pick up, filter through your liver, and remove from your body. So recovery and success of the tattoo removal depends yes, on the kind of ink used, how deep it is and how long ago you got it, but also at how healthy your immune system is. That’s the part I found interesting.

First appointment: 01/28/2016

I walked in to my appointment, where I was given some waivers to fill out. The nurse took me back to the room and explained everything the girl had covered with me the day I came in for the consultation. At one point, he asked me if I had a high pain tolerance. Is it going to hurt that bad? I told him “I think so?” I mean 14 tattoos and a chiropractor/massage therapist who uses tools to break up my muscles to the point of bruises… Yeah, I think my pain tolerance is pretty high.

After about five minutes of the “this-could-happen, that-could-happen” shpeal, he handed me some protective glasses and picked up a hose-like item and explained that it would blow out cold air to help numb the area. Applied behind my ear, I couldn’t help but think “this wouldn’t numb anything.” But it was cool enough to feel good if heat was going to be coming at me too. He said he would give me a little zap, just so I knew what it would feel like before going straight into it.

Zap! It sounded like a taser but felt like a rubber band snapped me. “Ah crap. This is gonna suck.” I gave him the okay to go and the taser sound started zapping as I felt the snapping against my skin. I’m not going to deny the fact that it hurt; something like getting snapped by that rubber band over and over, or getting splattered with bacon grease. I closed my eyes and started concentrating on breathing through the treatment but before I could even take maybe 15 breaths, I heard him back up and he said “all done”! What??? That felt like it only took 10 seconds!!!

He put some ointment on my tattoo and covered it with some gauze and went over after-care, which is basically the same as getting a tattoo. I was in and out in about 15 minutes!

Even after the first treatment, I already see some results, mostly in the inside of the crossbones’ shading.

Third appointment: 04/21/2016

The second appointment was more of the same so I’m not even going to bother with that. I went in for the third appointment, and because I was healing so well, the nurse decided we were going to bump up the power this time around.

This time there were louder cracking sounds along with the zapping of the laser. It sounded worse than it felt; I mean the loud cracking. The laser sucks, it hurts, but the loud cracking didn’t hurt any more than any of the rest of it. I did scab up this time, though it only took about a week for the scab to completely heal.

So here is a photo as of 05/17/2016, about a month after the third session. The crossbones are considerably lighter after the three sessions. Because of the cost after the GroupOn deal, I’ll probably wait out a bit before my next laser session.