tallahassee

my bellybutton piercing is infected. i'm pissed. it's no longer a matter of "oh well i think it's infected, but i can't be sure. i'll just have to try to see a piercer about it," now i'm positive. the area around it is swollen and red and i can actually see the pus under the skin. it looks like a giant whitehead. weird thing is, the piercing itself isn't leaking any pus. well now i'm wondering if the piercing is infected, or if there just happens to be an infection next to it that is causing the piercing to swell. bc i had a scab there from somehting completely unrelated that i picked off while half-conscious and full of cold medicine, which could just as easily have gotten infected. either way, i can't take the jewelry out or the infection could get trapped under the skin, so now i'm not really sure how to go about treating this. can't afford a doctor, there's no piercers within walking distance of my apartment, and because the other injury was so close to the piercing, you would have to examine it pretty closely to figure out which hole was the cause (which is really hard to do when you're like me and you're just NOT flexible. great. so now on top of feeling all fluish (yes i know i just got over being sick a few days ago, and now something else hits me) i have this throbbing, gross-looking piercing that i'm really not sure what to do with. someone upstairs really wants me to be miserable. but i refuse. i'm just going to hope that whatever virus is affecting my stomach just got into the piercing and when i get better the infection should go away. bc i REALLY don't want to lose this piercing, it's already failed 3 times before.