phantom777

So day 1 is almost getting over. The night after the surgery, I slept like a baby:D but had to get up every 2 hours for the medicines. I decided to stay one more day in the motel to be safe as I came alone and have to drive back alone. I am still taking advil every 4 hours. Today morning they picked me up from the motel and cleaned up everything. And around 12 they again picked me up and cleaned. I went and got some sandwiches on the way as I was eating very light food till now ( just fruits and bread). Feeling fine now but for a very minor pain on my donor area. They removed the staples today. Every time i touch my hair around the donor, i feel it very hard. I never saw my suture line as i have long hair and they covered it with my hair. I think my forehead is swelling. Am planning to put some ice on it and keep rubbing it like a viper on the car, So other than taking meds and sleeping and wriitng this up, my day has been stuck pretty much like this. Please do let me know if there's more I can do to avoid this swelling. Am also lying down on an inclined positon with 3 pillow behind my back. Tom the manager has told me he would be giving the pics he took by next week along with the number of single, double ... hairs.

These are the pics I took before my surgery, the night before. Added one more pic which was taken 3 months before the surgery (the last one)

I just had the transplant done with Dr Konior like an hour back (Thursday). It was such a breezy affair today. I am just 30 years old but my hair doesnt look 30ish so I decided to match it up with my age . I had a consultation with Dr initially 4 months back and he had recommended around 2000 grafts since I was kinda young for a transplant and he wanted it to be conservative. I had loss at my crown too which I hoped would be covered but he told me the importance of conserving hair for the future and placing hair where it factors the most and I did agree with that. I reached the hotel ( Comfort Inn), half a mile from his office on Wednesday evening. Since I live in Indianapolis, I just traveled after work. Since I reached around 6 in the evening, i asked Tom , the manager if he was free and he asked me to come over and we did some paper work and he told he about a place just walkable from the office i could buy food. It was called Pete Market I guess. I went and grabbed some food and headed back to the motel. There's a walgreens and a bank of America too. I just withdrew some cash to pay for my toll . I then washed my head,face and neck with the antibacterial soap , had a medicine, and headed to sleep after a while . I was picked up early in the morning around 6:15 and by the time I reached, Dr Konior was already present. I spend a few minutes with a nurse over there and Dr Konior came over. We talked about the hairline and since we had already agreed with the hairline, we did not have to deviate much with what we thought would be best for us. Dr Konior then asked me to draw the hairline I wanted and I did so and he said " hmm so you want a GQ magazine's cover guy's hairline' . I laughed and said...umm maybe He then drew the hair line and I said that was fine with me. But he started taking pics over and over again and started perfecting the hairline until he felt it was all good. He might have taken over 10 pics and modified the hairline to make sure it's perfect. They then gave me some me medicines and took me to the surgical room. I could see the doctor going over the pics again and again which I was guess was his planning what was best for me. They asked me to lie down to take the donor.it might be 8am or earlier by then. And I did not see what was done but i felt small prickings which was to numb me i guess.I had made sure that I slept late the previous night and woke up early today so that I would for sure be sleepy even if the valium did not work on me;) the next thing i knew was the clipping which I guess was the donor being stiched. It might have taken over an hour. And then I was turned back facing my head upwards for the transplant to start. And all i knew was I waking up at around 12:30 and asking if I could go to the restroom. It was over in 2 mins and I was back to my baby sleep. And the next thing I remember was them saying its all over. and i was like wow. Did everything just happen in 30 mins?. But it was 5pm by then. And the doctors said I was a very very good patient as I did not disturb them the least. And another good news he told me was instead of the initial 2000 -2400 grafts we had planned, he went to 2960 ish and I was like wow, thats a bonus. And he was very kind enough to not charge me for it. He only charged me for 2600. I dont' know how many doctor's do that. First of all he tell me we can do with very less grafts. Then he does more grafts and on top of that he dont charge for the extra grafts. That speaks volumes of how professional he is and how much he thinks about the welfare of his patients. So now am back to my motel with the ice pack and ready to take the meds and will head back to his office tomorrow for some cleanup again.And I have not still seen my donor area as I had grown my hair long like 4-5 months and its covering all of my donor.If someone looks at my head, they would have no clue as to where the donor hair came from . I will be posting my pictures soon as I currently don't feel like walking around with my camera and taking pics. But I promise I'll do it this week. And here's a link to my blog I had created a few months back Hair Restoration Social Network - Hair Loss Patient Blogs. So I guess my wait begins with the work of my magician Dr Konior.

And finally I scheduled the date for my transplant with Dr Raymond Konior . July 17th would be 'the day' I will be having a scar on my head which hopefully would be a secret between me and Dr Konior . I did start thinning my hair when I was about 20 and I remember my friends telling me not to apply gel as they could see my scalp from the top. It was not until I was 24ish when I noticed my front receding and only then did i really start worrying/noticing. I never bothered to look how I might be looking on the top/crown as all I cared to see daily was the front . But the last 5 years have been a real change for me as more and more of the hair started thinning where it has reached a stage where I can no longer comb properly. I went from being a guy who used to love being in front of the camera to one who love being only behind the camera for pics and very concious where ever I go. I've been going over google for hair loss pics for over 3 yrs now and which ever pic I clicked then, it ended up in this forum, and then I understood that this is the alpha and the omega of hair loss information;) I did not intend to have a hair transplant then but when I started going over the forumns, and found that no major side effects were there, i was keen to know if I could be a candidate. I then knew since i have diffused/thinning, I need to choose my doctor carefully and that since I am just 30, I need to be more conservative in my approach. I know its difficult to hold back the want of more hair . Dr Konior's consultation was very smooth. He made sure he put across what he felt was best for me though i was wanting some coverage on my crown if it was possible. He told me to avoid anything on the crown for now. And that 2000 grafts would be enough for me for now. I remember each time he ran his fingers over my hair, telling me that my donor hair was fairly good and that the sides of the donor were almost as dense as the back. That sounded like an opera to me since I knew I would go into a higher norwood in the older days and this being a lil comforting to me now . He also told since I have diffused hair loss, the shock loss would be more if I tried to have 3000+ grafts which did make sense. I did not know how the one hour flew by in the consultation and he sat there and answered all my questions. The pics I have attached might not be very clear as i had taken it randomly, with no intention then of putting it up in this forumn.

Waiting for the final results