Monday - 5 evenings after...

I decided not to do a video entry tonight, so I'm just going to post a photo I took and give a little explanation of what has been going on today.

In the photo above, you can see that my healing process is going very well. If you look closely at my temple corners you will see very short hairs starting to poke through. I almost would swear that they've grown since they've been implanted...but it may be more likely that the swelling just went down, OR that the scabs are just falling away more, thus exposing more hair. As you can see there are only a couple of red clots left, the rest have turned white from all the soaking, and are starting to drop away in the bath.

I have been soaking my head as perscribed in a tub 2 times per day. I have been adding Epsom salts to the bath each time, and this evening I decided to squeeze two vitamin E capsules into the water, just to help the skin retain some moisture - as 2 baths a day and washing hair twice a day dries you out a bit.

My swelling has subsided almost entirely, so I'm quite happy about that - since it's been less than 4.5 days since I got home from the procedure (Thursday 1pm, to Monday 8pm).

I will be working from home again tomorrow. Luckily I work in I.T. for a financial institution, so I'm all set up with VPN and can do all my work from home. However, I'm fairly confident I could go to the office tomorrow, and nobody would be the wiser.

I enjoy lightly touching the top of my head... It's prickly like I had a really short buzz cut. The odd sensation is that the scalp in the area of the transplant has lost some sensitivity, which is normal. It's due to nerve endings all being disturbed, so it feels a little like you're touching somebody else's head. My doctor has told me that this just takes a little time to return to normal.

To combat the swelling over the last couple days, I do the following:
Right after my bath, while my circulation is still going, I do a cold compress on my forehead, while laying at an incline of 45 degrees to help take the swelling away. For the past couple days I was religiously applying ice every hour for 10 minutes.

Starting today I added a few things to my routine (and these were not the advice from my doctor, but rather something I decided to do)
1) I began alternating a cold compress with a warm compress, to keep the swelling down and the circulation going. I figure the swelling is mostly gone, so this will just speed the last bit away.

2) I drank a lot of green tea today too as a diuretic, just to flush out my kidneys as much as I could and help the get fluids from the swelling out of me. This again - my idea, not the doctors. I figure it couldn't hurt so why not.

3) I ate a couple cucumbers and some asparagus today for the sulphur and asparagine. Helps to stimulate the kidneys. Can you tell I've been doing a lot of Googling lately? I never usually go for weird medical ideas, but I like both cucumbers and asparagus, so I decided - hey why not, they're good for you anyway.

OK enough typing for tonight. Time for a good night's sleep.