Day 2

Warning: This entry also contains images that may be disturbing to some readers.

Day 2 has come and gone! What I am impressed with the absolute most is how my head has not swollen at all. I think the clinic staff really knew what they were doing with all the meds, the PRP, the massage, etc. Here is an image of what my procedure looks like this morning, right next to what my first procedure looked like on Day 2 four years ago:

I don’t want to bad-mouth the clinic where I got my first transplant four years ago, so I will just say that I really wish I had gone to Sante for the first one. Maybe I wouldn’t have even needed a second procedure so soon afterwards. You can notice that the first transplanted area does not look that big, nor did they really do much to the sides of the hairline, even though I was billed for 1,600–1,700 grafts. When I showed that to Dr. Bobby, he said that they were maybe 800 grafts based on the pictures. You can also see that the top of my head was quite swollen, which lasted for about 3–4 days. If you look at the image on the left, I am not swollen in the slightest. The internet says the swelling can present itself between days 2 and 3, but I think it just won’t happen to me, God willing!

Now for the images that may be disturbing. This is what the donor area looks like today:

As you can see, there is still some bleeding and some discharge. I took these pictures right after I woke up. This is what my pillow underpad looked like this morning:

As you can see, there was less blood and less leakage this morning when compared to yesterday after I took my afternoon nap. It is still more than I would like to see, but I guess it had been less than 48 hours since the procedure when I took that picture. We’ll see what tomorrow looks like! Since Dr. Bobby said this could go on for 7 days, I have bought a few more pads on Amazon, as the clinic only gave me 4 to get me started.

It is now time for my second hair wash of the day. I am getting faster at doing them, especially since I stopped using the sponge. In retrospect, I regret using the sponge for the very first wash, even though I watched the tutorial online. Thankfully, I think everything was done so carefully that I don’t think any of the grafts were disturbed, and I just won’t do that again. I am now just letting the baby shampoo + water mixture fall on the grafts, and then I use my measuring cup to pour water over them to rinse the shampoo. I am in and out of the bath in around 10 minutes. I will need to keep doing this for 5 days, so until Tuesday. Then it’s once a week until day 7 (Thursday). Supposedly, this is when you can start showering more normally, but I do want to wait until day 10 to do so (next Sunday), as that is when everyone agrees that all the grafts are securely in place and can’t be dislodged unless done surgically.

I will be posting daily pictures probably until Day 10, and then I’ll do more sporadic updates, like weekly and then monthly. Again, not even sure if anyone is reading this, but if anyone is, thank you for reading, and I hope this is helping!