GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

Day 5 Scar Close Ups Not much more to report. Everything looks/feels great today!

GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

Day 6

GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

HT Day! The big day! I woke up early and scrubbed down in the shower with Hibiclens and got into my stylish sweatpants and headed down for a big breakfast. The hotel picked me up at 6:45 sharp and we made the long 3 minute trek to Dr. Cooley's office.One of the techs, Stephanie greeted me at the door and double checked the consent forms and, most importantly, helped me make out my movie list and lunch order. Dr. Cooley then came in and went over our plan one more time, gave me some valium, demerol and other fun stuff and then took the "before" photos.We got into the surgery room and gave me the Versed intravenously and prepped for excision. Dr. Cooley uses a very cool vibrating/massaging thing that distracts you from the needle that gives the local anesthetic. I have heard plenty of people talk here about that being the worst part and I can honestly say, I hardly felt any of the injections all day. I was conscious through the excision but very relaxed and wasn't bothered at all. It went by very quickly and the next thing I knew, Dr. Cooley was making the recipient incisions. Next he and the lead tech, Brandi, were placing grafts while 8 other techs prepared the FUs.   

GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

Immediately Post Op Dr. Cooley was in the room placing with Brandi nearly the whole day. When he had to step out for a while, another experienced tech, Amy pitched in. From start to finish, I was there 11.5 hours. It seemed to fly by and everyone was so great I actually enjoyed my time there. Dr. Cooley ended up extracting 2508 FUs and covered an are of approximately 50 cm2 for a density averaging 50fu/cm2.I think I had slightly higher than average hairs per FU. The breakdown is:1s - 4132s - 10303s - 8374/5s - 228for a total of 2508 grafts and 5896 hairs. Dr. Cooley said the donor was closed with "no tension at all" which made me very happy. He used Acell in the wound. The next day a friend in the medical profession looked at it and said "That looks like a wound that has been healing for 2 weeks not 24 hours" so needless to say, I am thrilled and hope it continues to heal well. As it is now, I have a  hard time finding it just to put the antibiotic on.  I couldn't believe how clean everything looked when he was finished. No bleeding, everything just looked neat and tidy. I couldn't have been happier. After being so worried in the weeks building up to this day, I couldn't have wished for a smoother procedure.  After the shuttle took me back to the hotel, a former coworker who now lives in Charlotte picked me up and I felt so great we went out for dinner. What a great day. 

GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

Day 2 Back home and feeling great. I am following the Dr.'s instructions to the tee and keeping the area covered with plastic wrap and moistening with Dr. Cooley's "magic" spray every hour, even through the night. I am still impressed with how little scabbing there is and how clean the whole are is. Still a little numb.

GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

Donor Scar on Day 2 UNBELIEVABLE donor scar in my opinion. It is so clean and is already healing quickly. Not sure if it is the Acell, the surgical technique, or just me but whatever it is, I am happy.

GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

Day 3 Not a ton of change. Today was my first "cup" shower which felt great. I also learned that right out of the shower is not a good time to take photos as you can see- the temporary effect of the moisture makes everything look all oogy. Five minutes later it went back to normal.

GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

Day 4 Still feeling great. Still very very little scabbing. I was expecting so much more. I am continuing spraying frequently with Dr. Cooley's graft spray and I think that moisture is what is keeping away the scabbing and flaking. I cannot express enough how much I love the cleanness of the work. I know the hairs are 99.9999% going to fall out of the grafts but there is a little part of my fantasy mind that is hoping they stay :-) Either way, I am loving it. 

GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

Immediately Pre Op I traveled to Charlotte July, 26th to meet with Dr. Cooley and discuss final plans and make sure my expectations were in line with reality. Dr. Cooley is a great guy and very easy to talk to. This man is the real deal. He stood by the recommendation that 2000 grafts would look great. I had budgeted to go as high as 3000 grafts and he agreed to be flexible and take out more than 2000 if possible and work a little farther back into my existing hair. After the final consultation, I headed over to the hotel. The hotel that Dr. Cooley's office uses for out of town patients is stellar. The patient consultant, Lollie, told me that they always have about 2 patients staying there on most days and that they always treat his patients well. Totally true. When checking in, the staff noted that everything was paid in advance and very warmly set up the early morning shuttle for the next day. They said if I needed anything, let them know- Dr. Cooley's patients are their VIPs. That felt great. It was still the afternoon so I took a quick trip to the mall to grab a button up shirt for procedure day and then took in a movie to kill time. About 9:00 went to sleep with the alarm set for 5:30 to get up and get ready for produre <p><br /></p>

GreaseDJ

Bald class: 3

Procedure 1

Before These pictures look silly to me because I never wear my hair back- always forward covering the hairline. I am really looking forward to having more options in the future!