Happy Birthday To You

The tattoo turned 14 yesterday and I forgot to wish it a happy birthday. Probably because it was the first time I've worn long sleeves since May. 14, that's old (relatively). I remember when I turned 14, it was a seriously formative year for me. MTV was still cool, worth watching. It was different back then, it showed music videos. Being the mid-90s it showed quite a lot of good music videos. Good is obviously subjective, but it showed music I liked. I used to spend hours watching MTV... I don't think my tattoo has ever watched MTV, definitely not for music.

When I was 14 I'd say Nirvana were still my favourite band. It was also around the time I started getting into Nine Inch Nails and from there, Industrial music. I've been listening to a lot of 90s music lately. Either a coincidence or my tattoo is aging the way I did and is forcing me to listen to the music I liked when I was its age. I'd say the latter is more likely. I had initially thought that my tattoo must be the first 14 year old I've ever wanted to blast off of the earth with a laser, but I doubt that's true. I suspect that when I was 14, there were quite a few people I'd have liked to blast off of the earth with a laser.

My current goal is that the tattoo doesn't get to turn 15. I didn't think it would make it to 14 but that was seriously naive of me. Tattoos aren't easy to remove. I worked out that I have 43 weeks left on my current schedule of laser sessions. That's assuming they stay at an eight week frequency. They might space them apart more to allow it fade better. I've paid for another 5 sessions already I'm just not sure if he'll want to do them all as soon as reasonable or if he'll want to space them out further.

I'm still both happy and unhappy with how its going. I do think Picosure is worth paying for. While I wish it was fading faster, I do think I'm seeing better results from it that I had with previous sessions. My next session is scheduled for Oct 13 but I'm getting really impatient. I need to remind myself that the healing time is probably more important than the number of sessions. It's just tedious. I'd like to say that if I'd known tattoo removal was such a long process I wouldn't have gotten the tattoo, however I know that's nonsense. Even after I got this one, I had planned on getting more. Thankfully I was a student and didn't have the time or money.

Anyway, that's the bleakest birthday writing that I've done since I was about 14. I think the biggest difference between me and my tattoo being 14 is that the world started to really open up for me when I was 14 and its starting to end for my tattoo. Almost fitting that it's coming into Winter and it will be covered for most of the days. Hopefully by next summer when it's t-shirt weather again and I have my 14th birthday (for the 22nd time) the tattoo will be at best a few blotches of ink on my arm.

Five and four

It's now 4 weeks after my first picosure sessions and fifth laser session. I'm quite happy with the results, relatively. The whole process is slow and I think the more faint the tattoo gets, the harder it will be to notice fading. I took two photos last night and it surprised me how faded it looked. I still don't think it's noticeable to others though, unless they look closely. While I can see a lot of fading, there are no gaps or parts missing.

I took two photos:

This was taken without flash. The shading from my phone makes it a little harder to see. I think it looks a lot more faded than the picture I uploaded two weeks ago.

The above is with flash. I think the different light makes the ink look darker but the more faded parts stand out more.

I think it's pretty good fading for 4 weeks. My next session is scheduled for 13th Oct. Not sure I'll make that date but hoping it will have faded some more in that period. 5th Jan will be one year since I started. I know that it has faded a lot since then, I'm hoping it will be really obvious by 5th Jan 2017.

Two weeks

Healing After Picosure Tattoo Removal

I think it's fading, I should really compare with pictures, however my left-handed photography means that no two images are quite the same. I'm kind of disappointed with how it's fading, not because it isn't. Rather, it seems to be quite even. I'm not noticing anything vanishing, I just think the whole thing has gotten a shade lighter.

Looking at that on my computer screen, I think I can see some parts which have thinned, under the face and around the legs in particular. My nemesis is still the chest. If that would lose the darkness, it would look much more noticeably faded. I know it will get there, it's just so much slower than I had expected.

• Regret 1: Not starting around this time last year like I had meant to (even in the tattoo shop)
• Regret 2: Not knowing about picosure until much later and having started with it

I've done some reading and am now thinking I was mistaken. I believe the laser in the tattoo shop would have eventually removed my tattoo. It wasn't a passive q-switched, it was Nd:yag. These will work on dark inks, like blue and black. However I still think I made the right choice going for picosure. This is only two weeks and I'm seeing a difference, the lack of pain, swelling and bruising alone makes it worth it.

I'm taking a week of holidays next week so no blogging. I'll be interested to see how it looks in two weeks (you won't recognise he-eer), I won't notice as I see it everyday, but the photos should help.