EP022: Alexa's Story of Transformation

Podcast: Download (Duration: 34:29 — 31.6MB)

Jessica: Hi friends! It's Jessica today with Alexa. Alexa is part of the Avanti community and they're here today to share a little bit about their story, so before we go anywhere with any questions, why don't you start by talking a little bit about yourself?

Meet Alexa

Alexa: Hi, my name is Alexa. I am a Certified Veterinary Technician, which is a very fancy way of saying animal nurse. I work six days a week at two different clinics, one in Keizer, Oregon, and the other up in Portland, Oregon. It's really nice that both clinics are actually pretty okay with the piercings and things that I have, I was able to get both jobs with the current amount of piercings that I have without having to put in anything clear or take them out or anything of that nature so it's kind of nice in a medical specialty being able to express yourself that way without feeling limited by your job like, Oh, I can't have this because of this so that's changing.

Jessica: That's super cool. What got you into being a vet tech?

Alexa talks about what got her into being a Veterinary Technician

Alexa: I have always wanted to be in the animal field since I was a kid. It was just a matter of being a doctor or a nurse and once I was in the field, I realized that the nurses do all the cool things - we draw blood, we take X-rays, we do all the cool hands-on stuff, the doctor just shows up and kind of says what our work is just kind of based on what we do get the diagnosis and things of that nature, but we do all fun stuff.

Jessica: Yeah. All my nurse friends, they're busy all the time and whenever I go in, I always end up asking the nurse a bunch of questions because they know me, you know?

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: Then it's like, alright, so this is what it is and they're like, "No, you don't know me."

Alexa: Exactly!

Jessica: What's your cat's name?

Alexa: Akantha.

Jessica: Oh! Is it a boy or girl?

Alexa: She's a girl.

Jessica: Oh!

Alexa: Hi, sweetie!

Jessica: That's cute.

Alexa: She likes ---

Jessica: Looks friendly.

Alexa: Yeah, she likes to be with me as much as she can and this is kind of fun. On my day off, I have one day off. This is kind of our time.

Jessica: Have you been super busy with COVID or have you?

Alexa shares their clinic’s operation during the pandemic crisis

Alexa: Yeah, it's been really interesting. We're operating on a process, not quite like drive-thru medicine but pretty close. Where we have our clients stay out in their vehicles in the parking lot and we come and collect. We collect the pets, we bring them into the clinic, we're not allowing clients in our clinics just because we want to minimize exposure and cleaning time and all of that so we bring the pets into the clinic, we form the exam, we do a lot of things over the phone - payments, all of that good stuff, and then we bring the animals back up to them.

Jessica: Okay. I have a pug, he gets in a lot of trouble and he seems to get into more trouble now that I'm home. I've been to the vet four or five times since the quarantine started. I was like, Hey, I didn't know you could do this, but you ate a plug.

Alexa: That's not surprising.

Jessica: Right? I am like Oh, no! I call the vet and they're like, Is it bigger than eraser? and I am like, It was a zero gauge and they're like, what does that mean?

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: I'm like, I don't know. It's like a big eraser.

Alexa: A giant eraser.

Jessica: Imagine a really big eraser, should I be worried will he poop it out? So why don't you tell me a little bit about what led you to get piercings?

Alexa talks about what led her to get piercings

Alexa: When I was a kid, I don't remember specific individuals but seeing people with piercings and tattoos and thinking, Oh, that's so cool. I want to look like that and I am ironically afraid of needles but that's not super uncommon I found with piercings so that I tell myself like, tell not to. So I don't look when things are happening.

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: When I got my septum pierced, I closed my eyes the whole time and my best friend came with me and she asked the piercer, which I actually did at Avanti was where my septum was pierced. I don't remember the piercer’s name, it was quite a few years ago but she asked, "Hey, do you mind if I take a picture?" And he said, "Oh, yeah, sure! No worries." And she showed me the picture later, she said, "Do you want to see the picture of the giant needle going through your nose?" "Sure, now that's not actually happening."

Jessica: You're like, okay.

Alexa: Yeah, no worries.

Jessica: Did it hurt for you getting your septum pierced?

Alexa: Not at all.

Jessica: Mine neither. I remember building it up in my head. I also got my septum pierced here, and I tilted up my head, and then it didn't hurt nearly as bad as my nostrils did and I remember just being like, Oh, that wasn’t too bad.

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: It's like such an intense piercing because it goes through your nose.

Alexa: And the guy told me he's like, you have one of the best sweet spots I've ever seen and I was like, thank you and you're welcome.

Jessica: That's awesome. What was your first piercing?

Alexa’s piercings journey

Alexa: My first was my first holes that I did when I was younger as an elementary school where at that time, I didn't know about piercing shops and things so we went to Claire's, and with the guns, and then I had a reaction to one of my earrings. I don't recall what type of metal it was or what was going on, but I wore these earrings for my uncle's wedding and my ears were unhappy and my mom are dealing with that process and so then after that, I am very forgetful. It's kind of lazy so then my piercings closed, and then many years later, I don't remember if I was in high school or maybe a little bit older. I went back to Claire's and got them repierced and the gun got stuck.

Jessica: Oh no!

Alexa: On my ear. It had already been pierced through so it was fine. It wasn't halfway done, but I just had this gun hanging off the side of my ear for a few minutes and it was fine. No big deal. And so it was my first lobes then after that, I wanted my second holes down on my lobes because I thought that was super cool and I did that literally before the first date with a guy I was with for five years. I was just like, I'm going on a date tonight, might as well do it.

Alexa: And then after that, I ended up getting my third holes of my lobes pierced because my OCD couldn't handle just seeing things in sets of two.

Jessica: Yes.

Alexa: It was wrong. My brain was like this isn't correct, this isn't artistically okay. It needs to be an odd number.

Jessica: I need a third one.

Alexa: I need a third one, so I got a third and then I got a cartilage piercing which I was terrified of because of middle school we had this like newsreel that would show sometimes in the morning and it talked about cauliflower ear and my brain went, Oh no, I don't want to be that guy. I don't want a cauliflower ear. No, I'm scared.

Jessica: Oh, that's funny!

Alexa: So I did that one and that's my cartilage piercings are the ones that hurt the worst. I have a spiral of three on my right ear so it was three individual cartilage piercings that I had to heal at once.

Jessica: Ooh!

Alexa: And then just healing that actually it was sore, it was achy, it was uncomfortable. One of my other cats, back when she was snuggling with me, now not quite so much. She's got an alert as I can't. She was snuggling with me and one of her claws was actually hooked in one of my earrings, and I was half-awake and I just remember unhooking her claw and just moving about my life when I woke up the next morning, I am like what?!

Jessica: That actually happens fairly often, but I've heard that more than once of people that I have like cat--- Cat got claws stuck in my [inaudible 9:01] and it's like an often enough occurrence that like, oh, I know what to do.

Alexa: But it ended up being okay like I was half-awake, unhooked it. It was totally fine that I woke up the next morning but that could have gone horribly wrong.

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: So quickly.

Jessica: First, she was not so lucky, it ripped a little bit.

Alexa: Oh!

Jessica: Oh! So, a lot of times when I interview people and ask them what their experience meant to them, they have told me it was a transformative time for them. Was that true for you or was it just more of feeling confident or?

Alexa: It was a little bit of both. Growing up, I wasn't allowed to do fun color hair or get my own alternative piercings or style and things I wasn't really allowed to express myself in a way that I really wanted to.

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: So I ended up having to do that as an adult. So then once I became 18, I was able to make these decisions by myself, that's when a lot of it started to happen And it was fun to pick out my own piercings where they wanted to go and like the one that I felt truly unique with was my spiral on my right ear where I felt like that one was different and not one that a lot of people have so that was my special place.

Jessica: So what piercing was it that made you feel the most unique?

The piercing that makes Alexa feel the most unique

Alexa: My cartilage piercing with my spiral.

Jessica: Oh, very cool. Can I see it?

Alexa: Yeah. My boyfriend's gaming in the background. So I'm like trying to---make sure I can hear but also like, come on hair, get out of the way.

Jessica: Oh! I love it.

Alexa: I've seen maybe two or three other people with it. And they only had two instead of the three so my brain went Ha-Ha! I have three.

Jessica: That's awesome. All right, then it looks on your face, you have two on your nose and then two on your lips. Are you gonna do three?

Alexa: Maybe.

Jessica: [inaudible 11:32]

Alexa: It all depends because I really like the look whenever I see different things. I'm like I love your two on either side. I've thought about that. I thought about a cluster on one side. When I was going to pick out lip piercings, lip piercing was the first one I actually tried to look up like, what are there different styles or what do all these mean? And because I'm an animal person too, I had to try and get that bias out of my head so I knew I wanted that to close next to each other as a spider bite, which I think is cool -

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: - when they have animal names because there was one that was a shark bite that had so many and my brain was like, do I only want that because it has shark in the title.? Yes, let's start small. Instead of putting eight lip piercings. Let's just do two.

Jessica: Yeah, eight all at once would be a little much to get used to.

Alexa: Be a little excessive so I did the one to make sure that I liked it. I thought about it and then I got the second one. I believe I did my one here.

Jessica: Yeah, you did. That was Erica, I believe.

Alexa: Yeah, she was really nice.

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: I live in Salem and so a lot of the times funnily enough when I am going to Avanti to get a piercing like my septum. It was right before I went on a vacation with my friends, we were going to the beach and I had been thinking about it for a while and we were in Washington Square Mall. We just got some cider and I think she bought some rum when that place was in there and we're walking by and I was like Oh my gosh, it was a piercing shop and I'm thinking about my septum. She's like, do you want to just do it? Yes, I kind of do.

Jessica: You're like I'm already having an exciting day.

Alexa: I am already excited. We're already leaving to go to the beach tomorrow, let's just do it.

Jessica: Oh, that's awesome. That's what's cool about piercings is they can kind of momentize a special time?

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I am the manager now but when I started come into Avanti, I was a customer and I'd come with my best friend and we would get piercings together and we came all of the time and it was such a fun experience. You get to bond with your friends and then yeah, it's just a really fun time. I don't know. It makes you feel brave. I felt brave after I got my septum. I was like, yeah, I'm so cool.

Alexa: It's like, you cut a strut out of the shop and felt like I did a thing.

Jessica: Right? Look at my nose.

Alexa: Everyone look at this.

Jessica: I went to work right afterwards and I tucked it up because it's the one piercing that you can like---it's like the mullet for piercings like ---

Alexa: Right.

Jessica: Party. Business. Business. And I had it stuck in my nose and it made a big stink about it. I like sneeze---I got my septum pierced. I forgot I can't sneeze like I was really told.

Alexa: I didn't quite do that but I did flip it up a lot while I was at work initially because I didn't have that conversation with my boss like, is he gonna care? I don't know. But then he didn't care and I also just walked into work one day with my hair completely green and he didn't say anything either so I think I was pretty safe.

Jessica: You're like, this is cool.

Alexa: Pretty like it.

Jessica: With other jobs I would---because a lot of people think that the septum would be super noticeable, but I've noticed not everyone really sees it.

Alexa: No, they don't. I've even had some people say, Oh, I didn't realize you had too much piercings. I changed to actually having loops on my lip and my nose, because one of the clinics I work with, I work with exotic animals. So in that world, exotic animals are essentially things that aren't dogs and cats or farm animals and so chickens kind of can fall into that depending on if it's a backyard chicken or a production chicken. And so up in Portland, there's a lot of backyard chickens and one of them. Ironically, she has the same name as my mother who's not a fan of my piercings. I was restraining her kind of [inaudible 15:59], she stepped on my keyboard and made a bunch of noise in my ear. Thank you, friend. I was restraining her kind of politely for the exam, just lightly having my hands on her chest here and she looked at me, and then she just pecked up one of my lip piercings. It was like a little silver stud. It wasn't that big and it wasn't super noticeable, but she just pecked at it and I went "uh" like it was fine. It didn't pop out. It was no big deal, but after that, I was like, I should probably get a hoop so that way it's a little bit more stable and I'm not having my patients just randomly walk my jewelry out of my face.

Jessica: That's so funny. My aunt has one of those backyard chickens and an earring out of her ear. She's like, "Oh!"

Alexa: That actually happened to me. I used to do wildlife rehab.

Jessica: Very cool!

Alexa: About 10 years ago, and I was bottle feeding some fawns and while I was changing the bottles and giving them extra snuggle time because it's a baby deer, what else are you supposed to do other than snuggle with it forever which isn't great for the rehab portion but I was 18 so it made sense in my brain.

Jessica: You're like I was there. It's fine.

Alexa: It was fine. The little one---I didn't even think about it but I let them nurse on my ear because they would tell people okay, they might want a nurse on your ear nurse on your neck and so I would always joke with my boyfriend at that time I am like, If I come home with a hickey, it was a baby deer. I never had to have that conversation but you're sucking on my ear then afterwards and went Oh, no, you just ate my earring.

Jessica: No!

Alexa: It will be fine. The deer ended up being okay. It wasn't life-altering. It was really tiny and the deer was ---

Jessica: Must been smaller than a pencil eraser.

Alexa: It was smaller. That's hilarious.

Jessica: Which for anyone curious is smaller than a zero gauge is probably already two gauge.

Alexa: Yes, which was funny because it would actually been helpful to have a pierced person in that clinic for some frame of reference.

Jessica: Yeah, when I was talking to the vet I was like zero get because she has stretched ears too. So we're talking in gauge form and it was made it easier to communicate. I'm like, Oh, well, it's like eight you know, like this many millimeters.

Alexa: They're like oh, okay.

Jessica: Piercing saving lives.

Alexa: They are saving lives. One plug at a time.

Jessica: One plug at a time. So what got you into I guess, dedicating your life to animals is pretty big deal. What got you into that?

Alexa shares what led her dedicate her life to animals

Alexa: When I was a kid, I had always read animal encyclopedias-that's kind of how I learned to read.

Jessica: Nice.

Alexa: So that's what I spent most of my time doing. We watched a lot of wildlife shows like Crocodile Hunter with Steve Irwin. The Jeff Corwin Experience like that was how I would bond with my dad and so I always had that, nurtured that and so when I went to high school and middle school, I always knew what I wanted to do. I always knew I was going to be in the animal field, it's just a matter where, and I love exotic animal medicine because I don't feel like they have as much representation. In the veterinary world, as dogs and cats do, there's plenty of research out there for dog and cat companions like they're everywhere, but there aren't as many doctors or technicians who are comfortable with say reptiles and things like that so I have some reptiles at home. I love them, they're great. They deserve veterinary care when things go not according to plan with them and a lot of times with our exotic animal friends, it's because there's something that's not quite right with their husbandry so something in their environment is just a little bit out of whack. They're not warm enough, they don't have proper lighting or if it's an exotic mammal, their diet isn't complete. Like there's always just something missing and it creates a great educational platform.

Alexa: Because the internet is so infinitely helpful and not helpful. So much infighting where it's like, if you do this, you're a horrible person. If you don't do this, you're the worst and then you have to wonder too where those people live. Taking care of something like for example, a chameleon in Florida is way easier than taking care of a chameleon here in the Pacific Northwest. In Florida, it's already hot, humid and I think wonderful, but not everyone agrees and here, it's a lot cooler, different levels of humidity, different things going on so you have to tweak with where you live in the country as well.

Jessica: I like that. That's very true with piercing too. One of the reasons why we started doing these calls is you look after animals the way that I look after people's piercings.

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: There's a lot of there's a lot of information on the internet that's incorrect or mean.

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: And it doesn't need to be.

Alexa: No, it's kind of unnecessary how like ---

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: Do you have to be that aggressive and that judgmental? I don't understand.

Jessica: Exactly! Especially for a whole form of expression that's supposed to be about enlightenment, you know?

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: It's about yourself up from the restrictions of society, which would be harsh judgments.

Alexa: Exactly! We're all here for the same thing, let's not tear each other down.

Jessica: Humor, people.

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: What was one misconception that you maybe had before you started getting piercings versus now?

Alexa explains her misconception before she started getting piercings versus now

Alexa: Well, not all of them would hurt like crazy. I was afraid that all of them would just be super painful, and that it would be hard for me to find work, or that I would be judged or seen a certain way. A lot of my employers don't care.

Jessica: Yes.

Alexa: As long as you take care of them, they're tastefully done, they don't mind. One of my bosses actually, I asked him before I got my nose pierced here. I said, "So Dr. White, I'm thinking about this" and he said "Hahaha! I would rather you didn't" but he laughed and so I went, Okay. At the end of the day, I said, "So just to clarify, no nose piercing, correct?" And he laughed again and said, "I don't care, do whatever you want. Just don't do it yourself."

Jessica: Great advice.

Alexa: And I laughed and I was thinking, yeah, because this is the movie grease, and I'm going to grab an 18 gauge needle and an ice cube and go in the bathroom at work, like, No, I'm not going to do that. I don't trust myself to do it like, I'll trust myself to do that, that's terrifying and so having that moment of, oh, not all of my employers are going to care that much or see me any differently and clients don't care. Nine times out of 10 it doesn't bother them at least in my field. My mom works at the Salem hospital and it was interesting they did come like a poll with their patients and asked, “If your healthcare provider came in with a bunch of tattoos and piercings. How would that make you feel?” And they said that they felt negatively about it, but they wouldn't be cared for as much and things that really irritated me and I actually had a moment with a mobile orthopedic surgeon who came to the clinic to perform a procedure. I had worked with him before, but I don't think he recognized me. I mean, my hair was also green at the time, and I had more tattoos. So I had visibly changed.

Jessica: You look different.

Alexa: I did. I think about it now, like I did look very different. He made a comment. He's from a much older generation, that the girl who he had had his blood drawn for one reason or another, and the girl who's drawing his blood had a tongue ring, and he made a comment along the lines of “If she didn't care enough about her body to do that, then why should I think she would care about mine?” And he was saying this to me with my obvious facial piercings and how my lips though at the time, but I looked at him and I said, I don't believe that the jewelry on my body or my face or the ink and colors on my skin have any merit or anything to do with how good I am at my job. That has nothing to do with how good I am at my job.

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: And he looked at me and didn't say anything. So it's kind of like, yeah, take that.

Jessica: There you go.

Alexa: To me, it doesn't, it shouldn't matter. I have tattoos of dinosaurs on my arms and that doesn't mean that I don't care about my patients or that I actually had a client, not say this to me directly but to one of the receptionists I work with, maybe about a month ago or so, and she said, I really like that nurse, she was really nice and even with all of her piercings, normally that bothers me, but she is so nice. It didn't bother me like, cool. Okay. Nice to know that that doesn't bother you. You're welcome? I don't know how I should feel but---so it's nice seeing some of that changing and some of the older generations that we worry about so much, sometimes, maybe we don't have to worry about them so much.

Photo by Alexa Franklin

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: So not only that left in the world,

Jessica: It's true. Well, it's really interesting to see that the piercing community, piercing facilitators, that culture has changed as well. I've talked to a couple of piercers who've been piercing for 18 plus years, and they said it used to be extremely violent and there was a lot of fight.

Alexa: Oh!

Jessica: Yeah, there's a lot of almost like gang-like activity among different piercings and tattoo shops and so seeing that change.

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: Which when I heard that I was like, Oh, no wonder there's such a stigma.

Alexa: Yeah. We're kind of doing it to ourselves.

Jessica: We did it to ourselves and it's really interesting to see it go from that to an industry that cares so immensely about everything. Like there's piercers, not a lot of people know this, but a lot of piercers are actually not paid employees, there's some contractors and so make money based off of piercings and so with the shutdowns, they're actually not getting any income because of unemployment situations, and hopefully, they will soon but they're sacrificing their income by not wanting to reopen.

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: Too soon and so it's really interesting. I mean, I'm not a piercer myself, but to see piercers putting themselves financially on the line in order to support their customers well being is really, really amazing to see and I think it's something that needs a lot more attention because it's so contrary to what I think society thinks as people who are pierced and who are militating the piercings that they would just they just care about themselves and they're all about you like, oh, like dazzled, you know?

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: But it's very much about you know, that experience you talked about of getting your own piercings and feeling more like yourself and wanting other people to feel that way and to be healthy and happy like, it's really all about making sure everyone's healthy and happy within whatever description that is for them.

Alexa: Definitely.

Jessica: Yeah. But hearing that, about the old days, I'm like, Oh, that makes sense like, you know?

Alexa: Yeah.

Jessica: I think that maybe people who are modified or more violent is because they used to be a little bit.

Alexa: [inaudible 29:04] good PR friends.

Jessica: At least for in the South. Different interviews I had, that's where they're from so I couldn't speak to the whole world but for sure where they were at.

Jessica: So what is your favorite animal?

Alexa concludes the conversation with talking about her favorite animal

Alexa: Oh, that is so tricky because I have so many different sections but ones that I've been kind of over the past few years giving a lot more attention to are sharks and crocodiles. I just don't know what it is. I go through phases. I had a point in my life I was obsessed with tigers. It's just I like a lot of the more I don't want to say primitive but because I want to give them more value than that, where they don't get some of the attention and they have their own survival mechanisms which I think are amazing in different ways. It's not the usual soft, cuddly--- I am staring at my cat. So it's easy to be like, Oh, look at my cat. It's cute. It's fluffy, but it's like, you know, crocodiles and sharks and our scaly friends also, they need love too so kind of change sometimes.

Jessica: Before you enjoy the rest of your day, I'm pressing a question that I think you might have an expert opinion on about the Tiger King.

Alexa: Oh my gosh. That was horrifying to me in so many different ways. I binged it in an evening, unintentionally. I didn't realize there's only seven episodes. I was off work early, and I was like, this is going to be interesting, and then it was like a train wreck, I couldn't stop watching and part of me like when I was young and growing up and things, I wanted that hands-on experience with those animals, because that helped foster the love of them for me. But seeing as I got older, seeing the industry and kind of having that curtain lifted a little bit and realizing how that's not great for the animals, that's not what they need and knowing that there's more in captivity in the wild kind of puts my soul a little bit and then these people that are just profiting on it and in fighting with each other, like to me, it lost the point of those as the animals and making sure the animals are cared for and that if they have to be in captivity because they can't go anywhere else, you give them the best quality of life possible, because that's your job. You don't worry about what this person's doing in the infighting over here or whatever. You're there for them at the end of the day, and you got to make sure that their lives are the best that they can be and Carole Baskin is a hypocrite. And so watching that thing too like the infighting between the two of them, I was just like, but the tigers, you're missing the point.

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: People go because they want to see the animals, not see you. Stop making it about you. People care, but they don't care.

Jessica: Yeah.

Alexa: What about the animals? What about the tigers as well as the lions? What about them? And so making sure that their quality of life is good, and it's kind of scary to me with where I work, I have to look at prohibited species. So people are allowed to have these animals that come into one of the clinics I work with or not because we don't work with illegally owned animals. If the client doesn't know that it's illegal, then we give them the resources and we're like, hey, like red-eared sliders aren't legal to own in Oregon because they're an invasive species. So we will do some education there. Let people know that but there somewhere, it's like you can just get permits and have a lion oh whoa, why? Why would you know? Keep that in nature where they need to be, not everything and you can love them from afar and that's okay. I had to grow up to learn that. when I was a kid I wanted to go out nature and snuggle every animal that ever existed and have them whole literally be my best friends and you can love them from a distance and that's okay, that's where they need to be. It's safe away from you and you safely away from them. You can just kind of wave from over here or a webcam or whatever is safest for everybody.

Jessica: It's awesome. Well, thank you for sharing your opinion on wild animals, your opinion on vet care, why you love animals and why you love your piercings. It was great talking to you.

Alexa: Yes, you too.

Jessica: We kind of went all over the place-

Alexa: We did but it was fun.

Jessica: I appreciate your time. I'm so excited to see you when all of this are over.

Alexa: Yes. Of course.

Jessica: Have a great day!

Alexa: You too.

Jessica: Bye.

Alexa: Bye.