10:43 AM - I'm sitting in the chair at Dr. Bradley Wolf's office in Cincinnati. Its being webcast as we speak.Take a look and ask me any questions you might have. Right now, things are going well and Dr. Wolf is extracting my donor area. No pain so far.
12:03 PM - No pain. Hair (soon to be) gained. I've read where some of the concern out there is that there is a lot of pain from the procedure ... including the shots. I just went through several shots in the forehead, temple areas, and a few on top. There was a pin-prick or two, but there was very little pain in any of it. The ones in the forehead were the ones felt more than the others, but it was for a total of about two seconds. Even those weren't much pain. I'll give credit to Dr. Wolf and his crew ... but I'm guessing that there wouldn't be much pain for any of you - based on what I had just done.
12:40 PM - Currently, Dr. Wolf is doing the Coronal Angle (aka lateral incisions) as popularized by Hasson & Wong. For the 1 FU Units, he is using a .6mm blade. For the 2 FU Units he is using a 1mm blade. As far as I can tell from the chair, its all the same. I can't say it enough ... no pain here at all. (Although it sounds like Dr. Wolf is cutting a watermelon instead of my head!)
1:38 PM - I am still getting the receipient sites created. Since I have some of my original hair in the way, Dr. Wolf is being careful to place the cuts in between my existing hairs so there is as little shock loss as possible. I suppose this is a good problem, to have hair in the way. The hairline happened at a faster pace, since there wasn't much of my original hair in the way up there. Now we're looking to fill in the spaces, and I appreciate the fact that he's taking his time and being careful to avoid the original "soldiers" that God placed there 31 years ago!
3:11 PM - I'm feeling fine. My head is numb, but I'm not out of the program, or anything. I just take a break once in a while so that they can take a look at the live camera feed and adjust the webcam as necessary. How do you like the close-up shots? Hildi and Victor were handling most of the camera duties. Dr. Wolf, by the way, is placing the vast majority of the grafts (as you can see if you are watching, of course.) This is a huge advantage to me, the patient. Many doctors leave this exclusively to the technicians and consider their job done after creating the sites.
3:48 PM - Dr. Rubin Bogin is now assisting Dr. Wolf in placing the grafts. Dr. Wolf typically places the grafts, himself, along the hairline and on the dominant side. I know many doctors don't place any of the grafts, but the good doctor has been in here with me all day so far.
6:01 PM - Update from the chair. With the lateral slit technique that Dr. Wolf is using, he has been able to achieve 30 FUs per square centimeter in the areas of my head that didn't have that much hair (we just measured). A little less in the areas where my existing hair is, but again ... I already had hair there.
7:20 PM - Say goodnight, Gracie. We're all done here. Thanks for watching and to those of you who kept me occupied.
