A Life Changed in Istanbul - FUE Hair Transplant

There are about 15 hairs that didn't fall out post surgery that continue to grow.
Most of my redness has faded, most of it.
You can see my Youtube clips if you search Youtube for Trey Jacobs. I have a pre and post surgery video plus a 2 months post surgery clip I just posted today. Its not very amazing as I look almost exactly the same as I did before the surgery, but in a way that is a blessing. The good stuff is due to happen in a month or two from now

Ok for the medically curious I am now updating this blog 15 days after I undertook my hair transplant procedure. I continue to treat my recipient area as if it were made of glass, never touching it, being ULTRA careful when I put a top on over my head etc. Still using the shampoo they gave me, applying it to the scalp, letting it soak for a couple of minutes, then carefully stroking in a forward like motion and finally washing it off.
I did use a spray mist moistener by Simple, pretty much every half hour, sometimes hour, basically if it had been a while and I remembered I’d give my forehead a misting. This was to help remove any scabbing and I’ll never know if it made a difference but 10 days later when I first went back to work my forehead was still read, but no scabs or unpleasant looking things, just an oddly red forehead that looked like a curious sun burn.
I’ll come back to the sunburn look, but I would like to make clear that it has been my donor area that has caused me the most problems. In all the research I undertook no one really mentioned the donor area at the back of your head. I know the team hunted all over the back of my head trying to avoid grey hairs, perhaps other people had a more localised spot, but trying to sleep during the first 10? days really sucked!
Putting pressure on my donor area, as in, laying my head down on a pillow, felt very tender. I couldn’t sleep for more than 4 hours without waking up with a sore head, kinda like when you sleep on your arm and cut off the circulation, you wake up because it hurts, well that was my head. Not only that but the fear of rolling over onto my recipient area and dislodging my new follicles kinda had this already light sleeper on tender hooks come nap time.
Sore to touch to begin with, but then came the itch. Nothing drastic, but as the back of my head healed the kinda scabby surface began to itch. Gently touching it felt so soothing, oh my word, so blissful, insanely pleasurable. Now I’ve never given it more than a light rub, always very cautious not to break the skin or aggravate it at all, but the itch has been annoying. For about the last 3 or 4 days now I’ve felt confident that it had healed enough to put moisturizer over the donor area and that has helped some. I just generally have a constant mild itch sensation on the back of my head, but much less so than previously.
May be not everyone is affected like I have been, but um yeah, donor area became itchy as it healed.
Now onto the red recipient area, disappointing. Most everything I read about this procedure suggested that by day 12 it would all be looking normal again, not so in my case as is evidenced by these photos.
Its pretty obvious in the office what I have done to myself, but at this point when questioned I simply say “I’d rather not talk about it”, one guy then asked “did you burn your self”, and I replied “you know the part where I said I didn’t wan to talk about it”, and he dropped it.
My forehead is still red, although it continues to slowly fade. I sent a photo to Welfareabroad.com and asked if this is normal or a sign that something is wrong. Richard said he passed the photo onto the Dr and he said sometimes this happens, the redness can vary depending on skin type, as I have fare skin it may take 3 weeks for all the redness to subside. I think it will take a little longer than another week but here’s hoping :)
My recipient area has been pain free the entire time, although weirdly the very top of my head kinda feels numb but then again sensitive, like when I brush my hair ‘against the grain’ on top of my head, its uncommonly painful. I cant work that out.
So that’s me 15 days after my surgery, still some hickups to get over but I remind myself “Trey, its been 2 weeks since you had 2,400 holes cut into your head, is it any wonder the area is still a bit bruised looking”?
Hopefully in a couple more weeks it will all be sweet.

(PS sorry I'm a bit late in actually updating this site, I wrote this updating my actual blog site on day 15, in a couple days it will be 4 weeks and I'll take a few more pics)

It was a huge decision, stay as you are, or, get a hair transplant.
I never thought there was anything wrong with the way I looked, but there were certain things about having a large widows peak that bothered me. The number one thing being that if a photo was taken at the wrong angle it looked like I was deliberately sporting a Mr T style mo hawk hair cut! I never thought it was an option for me as it was just so expensive! I live in Edinburgh, Scotland, and to have it done over in Glasgow prices began at £5,000 ($7,600 USD). The prices I saw in the USA began at $10,000 USD. It was just out of reach, I couldn’t justify that expense.
While I was researching getting braces in Poland I saw that hair transplants were very popular in Istanbul, Turkey. Then a number of Facebook adds popped up and Welfareabroad advertised a sale price of £1,250 for the hair transplant, 2 nights accommodation and airport transfers. I was really quite gob smacked, that price just seemed too good to be true, so I started looking into it.
Welfareabroad are able to be contacted via Phone, Facebook, Whatsapp and Viber. I exchanged messages with Richard from Welfareabroad on Viber and he called me a few times answering my questions etc. I Googled Welfareabroad as hard as I could, I Googled the surgeon, I Googled ‘Hair Transplant in Istanbul ruined my life’, I looked at other clinics and what they provided, I thought I’d looked into it as best I could.
As I write this I have a family wedding to attend in the USA in mid November 2015 and I was anxious about doing it before the wedding for fear of looking like a freak in any wedding photos and thought it best to wait until after I come back. However once I had made the decision to go ahead with the procedure I just wanted it done immediately, like pulling a band aid off a wound as fast as possible, just get it over with!
I’d paid the deposit of £240 using a credit card and Paypal, however Richard instructed the remainder of the balance was to be paid in cash. This made me very nervous, although he did add that it is possible to pay the remainder via Paypal, but I would also have to pay the additional credit card fee. I cant say I’d ever seen £1,000 cash before, let alone traveled to a foreign country carrying it on me, made me very, very, nervous indeed. I was fearing that they would pick me up at the airport, rob me, and leave me in a ditch. A dear friend said exactly that too.
Now would probably be a good time to point out I only told 5 people I was considering this and all of them said I didn’t need to, I looked fine, one person was all for it urging me on, one person was DEAD against it, and the other three were more ‘if its what you want then you should do it’. It was very hard to move forward on this as the person who was so adamantly against it is very dear to me, she did provide me with questions I needed to ask the firm though and even though her feedback was negative it did help me make a more informed decision to use this firm or go ahead with it at all.
Clearly I made the decision to go ahead, I got the time off work, booked my flights and there was no going back. In all my outlay was:
Surgery £1,250
Extra hotel night £50
Direct Flights Edinburgh to Istanbul £360 (although I could have gotten them cheaper)
Turkish Visa £40 (with an Australian Passport, cheaper with a UK passport)
Spending money £50 (250 Lira)
Total £1,750
As you can see that’s significantly less to have it done here over in Glasgow.
While it appeared to be good value, and all my Googling had come up with only positive stories about how having it done had changed peoples lives, nothing negative about Welfareabroad or the surgeon, there was literally no satisfying my anxiety. Would I get mugged? Would my hairline be ruined? Would I get sick? Was this going to go horribly wrong in ways I couldn’t foresee? Dam I was nervous.
These are some of the ‘Before’ photos I sent across to Welfareabroad to see what they made of my hairline, and would the treatment work for me. This would be the ‘me’ that was going to be forever altered.
My hairline has been the same for about the past 10 years, so I had every hope that after the procedure it would not recede any further, but only time will tell on that one.
I ordered English Stirling notes to be collected at my bank as Scottish money can cause some issues when travelling even though its exactly the same. Sorted my Turkish Visa and was good to go. The flight is 4 hours from Edinburgh to Istanbul and I was told I would be picked up and taken to my hotel, I thought by Richard of WA (Welfareabroad). It was some effort to get through customs and took 45 minutes because of the size of the queue. I couldn’t connect my phone to the airport WiFi which was very frustrating. Collected my luggage and headed out the airport not quite sure where Richard was?
As I stepped out the arrivals door it was around 8pm and there were A LOT of people standing there with name plates waiting for their visitor to appear. I walked up and down the rows of drivers and couldn’t spot my name. This was very disappointing, I’d never been met by a driver with my name tag before and was really looking forward to it, fail. Knowing I was going to get hit with roaming charges I resentfully turned on my phone so I could Viber Richard and ask where he was. Of course my phone lit up with messages and texts and each time it buzzed I just saw money flying out my wallet :(
Richard advised the driver was near the Samnsung stand, which I could see, turned my phone off immediately and found my name on an A4 (standard page) piece of paper in amongst 5 others and made myself known to the guy there. He then escorted me to the door of the airport and called over another guy, they spoke in Turkish and I was instructed to get in his van. I was a little distressed by this as I didn’t know quite what was going on, who this person was, was I in a taxi, would this cost me money? Then the driver in broken English asked me the address of the hotel, um WHAT! I had no idea so I gave him Richards number, he spoke to Richard in Turkish off we went, he never said another word.
I had a vague idea of where we should be traveling to, what landmarks I should see, things like I knew I had to cross a bridge. I felt certain he had taken the longest way possible and this was just another example of a taxi long-hauling me. Getting a bit lost up some very narrow streets he calls the hotel and gets clearer directions. Outside my window life was so far removed from what I knew. Really young kids have run up to the door and knocking on the glass I assumed asking for money. The traffic was incredibly thick and slow moving, manic. Life as I knew it had lost its polite civilized edge and I felt thrown into a world of the survival of the fittest.
We arrived at the NY-IST hotel, which if I’m not mistaken is in the Beyoglu District, near Taksim Square. Regrettably I never actually got his name, but one of the staff (the one with the thumbs up in my photo) met my van and the driver drove off, relief, it wasn’t a cab I had to pay for.
Upon check in at his small desk, he instructed that it was 70 Euros for the transfer and 133 Euros for the three nights accommodation. Now Richard had said specifically I had to bring over English Pounds and pay him £150. Having just got out of a manic airport and traveled on manic streets, I just didn’t want to have to deal with this. I explained I only had Pounds, he said I could pay for the hotel on a credit card and change the Pounds to Euros the next day, but the airport transfer needed to be in Euros, cash. As I prefer to pay for things on card I was happy to hand it over to pay for the three nights, but this left me with a dilemma about the transfer money.
He gave me the card to my room and showed me how to use the small elevator, had to put a code in to use it, and then I went up to my room on the 4th floor which faced out onto a quiet residential square. I couldn’t see that much of a view being close to 9pm at night but I took solace in my large and quiet room. The WiFi worked very well and with my phone on flight mode I accessed the WiFi to send various messages that I had arrived safely, if somewhat confused and stressed. I really was very stressed, this was not going well.
I ventured down onto the maze of narrow streets to find something to eat and it seemed I chose badly.
I ordered what I expected to be a Calzonie as I knew it, but I got this and it was just pastrami? with a very thin cheese sauce inside. I actually got bored of the same salty taste before I could finish it and went back to my room to hide from the hustle and bustle of these narrow streets. Would have been much better with red wine, lots of wine, oh my how I wanted wine, but next day I was in surgery so no wine :(
The decor of the room wasn’t to my personal taste but it was spacious and clean, quiet, my safe haven. Either the in room safe didn’t work, or I couldn’t work it. Good water pressure in the shower and I rate that very highly. Good room over all.
I called my husband that night on Viber and had a right moan about how foreign and stressful everything had been, and that Richard had been in touch to say the medical clinic I was scheduled to use had been changed due to the Ministry of Health inspecting it, so they had booked an alternative center. Thoughts of them swapping the medical center I had re-searched for some back alley dirty place filled my mind.
Having a moan to Carl, all the way over in the USA, made me feel somewhat better but I just had no idea what to expect the next day, would the surgery be as complex as getting from the airport and checking in had been? If only I hadnt been there alone:( I really could have used a pal. None of my friends in the UK either had the time or money to come over with me.
In the morning knowing I had a long day in the clinic I raced down stairs at 8am to help myself to the buffet breakfast. When I saw it I kinda laughed to myself. There I was expecting bacon and eggs, pastries, I’d totally forgotten that they do things differently in Europe. I didn’t really fancy olives for breakfast but the meats and cheese, a bit of salad and coffee went down a treat.
Right on time at 8.45am my International Host ‘Tuna’ picked me up from the hotel. What a relief. No seriously WHAT A RELIEF!!!! Tuna and I just hit it off right from the get go. He was positive, excited for me, explained EVERYTHING about the procedure, what to expect was willing to answer my every question. Meeting Tuna changed everything in an instant, I suddenly felt safe and that everything was going to work out. Due to the change in location he said the best way to get there was to use the subway, and being a fan of international transport systems this worked for me. He guided me through the tunnels and train ride and when we poped up three stations later he said it was an 800 meter walk, or we could get a cab. I laughed and said who on earth would pay for a cab for such a short distance, but he informed me not everyone liked to walk and he was grateful I was making his job easy.
Easy, that wasn’t the way I saw it. I don’t think I stopped asking him questions, not just about the procedure but about life in Istanbul. I found my host had his own interesting life going on and this work was just a small part of it. At the time of writing this he is 27 and studding design at Uni and is considering a teaching position and getting married in a couple of years. He’s such a warm soul, to evidence this he said that on occasion people can just flare up and get into fights in Istanbul for no reason because people have so much on their minds, life can be hard there. It wasn’t that people are just ar-e holes, they just have a lot on their mind, what a compassionate way of looking at people.
The below link is Tuna and Trey out front of the clinic we used:
At the clinic I met with the Dr and we discussed the procedure, Tuna translated for me. He drew a line on my forehead that he thought would work, I asked for it to be lowered slightly, he said we could achieve that. Then a lady came in and double checked the line and she raised it back to where it originally was saying it would look odd to have it so low, apparently I was being hair line greedy. It was a difference of about 5mm so no biggy, I was happy with their decision.
Tuna and I went and sat down for a while, were served some tea while we awaited my hair cut. I was overdue a hair cut before I left the UK but as I knew they would just end up shaving my head I never bothered paying the £8 to have it cut at home, and then shaved off over there.
So with my head clipper cut down to a No.1 we then went to the room the procedure was to take place and I had to say farewell to my host Tuna.
Oh before I finish with Tuna, an example of how funny I found him to be. There were other hair transplant patients walking around the facility (its a shared facility that Welfareabroad had just hired a room) but these guys had massive gauze pads stuck to the back of their heads with what appeared to be a black headband holding it in place. As I sat there looking across to this guy with very obvious forehead hair transplant and that giant pad on the back of his head I said to Tuna “please don’t tell me I’ll end up looking like that”, he replied “of course not, to start with your not Arabic”. His comment caught me quite off guard and made me laugh and laugh. Yes the guy I was talking about had dark skin and was Arabic. He knew well I was referring to the gauze pad on the back of his head.
I’m not certain what qualifications the three ladies who did the majority of the work hold, were they nurses, were they trichologists, were they cleaners, no idea, this is where the language barrier was an actual barrier. One couldn’t say more than yes or no in English, one had a few more words and the third was ok with basic English but not great with general chit chat. Don’t get me wrong, I never expected them to speak English, I was in Turkey I expected them to speak Turkish, any English at all was a bonus as far as I was concerned. However I never felt I could ask them what they were doing now or was it going well, the kind of things that would have put my mind at ease while it was taking place. There was never any issue with us understanding important things like the word Pain, it was more about my anxiety of not knowing what was going on rather than it being an actual problem.
I seem to spend a lot of time just laying around waiting for it all to start, which I think is because there was another guy in having the same treatment as me but he got there first. Finally at 10.45am one of the nurses began injecting me with a local anesthetic. While this was going on the Dr came in to supervise, for all of 3 minutes. His phone rang and he left the room, nurse carried on. She had begun placing the holes in my forehead for the new hair by the time the Dr came back, for all of 3 minutes. His phone rang and he left the room again, nurse carried on. It would be some time before he came back to check on things.
This didn’t really bother me. I had read on different websites that this is often the case over there and not that I in any way want to be dismissive of their skill, but a monkey could just as easily have poked holes in my forehead as a trained surgeon. I had the distinct notion that these ladies had done this a million times before and knew exactly what they were doing. The surgeon simply determined what could be done.
Something to note was the nurses excellent manor in which she, as gently and considerately as possible, made certain the area was completely anesthetized with numerous jabs and patients, always asking “pain”? Sometimes I would answer yes or no, sometimes just a hand gesture to suggest ‘a little’, we understood each other.
Once the area was totally numb, the stabbing began. Stabbing, vulgar but accurate. Technically I should write ‘the canals were put in place’, but my forehead was stabbed approximately 2,400 times. There was no pain but I could not escape the noise and that was mentally challenging. It sounded something akin to shallow stabbing a raw potato again and again and again. There I was voluntarily letting my flesh be stabbed again and again and again and again X 2,400. Eventually I managed to block most of it out.
I have read that some people during this procedure fall asleep. I can confirm being made lay silently for hours did make me drowsy but no, I never fell asleep. The canal drilling over they put a bandage on my forehead and we took a break. Thank the God’s because I was totally busting to urinate. Another word everyone understood, toilet.
So with a few hours of surgery completed we stopped for a lunch break. I didn’t really want to, just rather push on and get it over with. I was so wound up and stressed by it that I didn’t even feel I could eat anything. The nurse with almost no English didn’t know what do to when I waved away at the idea of lunch, she had to fetch one of the others who told me that they would not go on with the procedure unless I ate lunch. With that I followed the nurse down to a room where I wolfed down lunch, apparently I was more hungry than I realized.
To this day I have no idea what the soup was, what the weird pasta things were, or what the two fried looking things were, but I just ate and swallowed so we could get back on with the operation.
Lunch over it was back into the room for the harvesting of follicles from the back of my head. The Dr was back and was the one to start to inject the back of my head with anesthetic, he was a bit more abrupt in his approach and this time I was glad as all hell his phone rang and he left the room again and the nurse took over. I knew, in theory, what was coming, but that didn’t stop my mind from thinking very scary thoughts.
F.U.E. Follicular Unit Extraction.
I knew that a tool with needle like end with a width of between .6 and .8 of a millimeter would be placed over each individual hair, pushed down into the scalp, the hair with root attached removed ready for placement in the front of my head. What I didn’t realise was that the tool used in this process would have a noise a bit similar to a dentist drill, not as loud, but similar. This process took over two hours, it seemed to take a very, very, long time. There I was laying face down with one nurse, sometimes two, talking in foreign buzzing away at the back of my head. Given enough time to imagine the worse I became certain I could feel them putting stitches into the back of my head. They weren’t using the FUE method after all, they were strip harvesting bits of my scalp and stitching me shut again! That buzzing noise I’d been listening too for hours was obviously some kind of saw. Of course they had been at it for so long now there was no point in challenging them or asking what was going on, so I just lay there until I could take no more and I had to ask the question “when can I go to the toilet”? I’d needed to for about and hour, she said 25 minutes and true to her word it was over soon enough. I would like to mention that while I couldn’t see who was coming and going in my room, each time someone did I heard them take off the gloves they had been wearing and putting a new set on. This made me feel confident in their medical hygiene procedures.
With my head wrapped up again I sped my way to the toilet and then came back to the room and took a couple photos. I wish I had of thought about taking these photos before we had begun but sorry, you get a rather used looking room. It was only when I saw the FUE tool that I breathed a sigh of relief that they hadn’t been strip harvesting my scalp after all. To have lay there for an hour fearing I was being mutilated was dreadful and if I’d only been able to speak Turkish and ask them what was going on my mind would have been put at ease, mostly. I’m hardly ever ‘at ease’.
With the harvesting of follicles finished they somehow applied what felt like an inch deep padded ring to the back of my head. I have no idea how it stuck there but it felt very secure. It had clocked on 4pm and then there was about a 30 minute break.
The third and final part began and I was back on the ‘table’. Now I’m laying face up but they put a light cloth over my face so they could spray my forehead and not get water/blood in my eyes. It was partially translucent so I could see the light and shapes through it, having it there I felt a little removed from the process and began to feel drowsy again. I was mostly one on one with the nurse with the red hair, I may be wrong but I had the impression she was like the boss or the most experienced one, I like to think so anyway. She said to me that its ok to fall asleep.
Please keep in mind that I now have someone placing a short hair in a pre-cut hole in my head and each time she placed the hair in the hole she kind of banged the end of it to make sure it had gone down as far as possible. Each time it hit the end of the shaft she had dug there was a slight pain sensation, like a pinch. This was a pain I could easily tolerate but it was there. So when she said it was ok to fall asleep I felt like laughing. At the best of times I’m a light sleeper and quite literally the light that flashes on my mobile phone when its received a message late at night, when its on silent, not vibrate, no noise what so ever, but that tiny flashing light can be enough to wake me up. So to have someone shoving bits of hair back into my head, I’m sorry love, but there was no way I was going to fall asleep with that going on.
That process really did take the longest time. So much so that Nurse Red (as in red hair) got out her phone and used it as a radio and we listened to Turkish pop songs as she worked away. One of those moments you don’t need language. She kept getting messages and her phone kept ringing, each time it rang it vibrated. Well it vibrated right off the counter and went bang on the floor. She laughed and I smiled knowing that she had her hands covered in blood and my hair and no chance to answer or save her phone. It didn’t smash or anything, but the radio stopped and even though I’m unlikely to try and find Turkish pop songs to listen to in the future, I was enjoying the distraction from the silent room.
She carried on and eventually the other two nurses came in and she went out for a while. Now they chatted away in Turkish and I was ok with that, as long as they were still paying attention to what they were doing let them chat. It was late at night and anything to keep moral up and get the job done. It was a bit endearing the way that I had a nurse on each side of my head plugging hairs away and all three chatted, and the tone’s of their voices was light and good natured. It was easy to see that these three ladies were good friends as well as work colleagues and happy to help each other out.
When I said that part took the longest time, lets see, we started at 4pm and by 8pm we were done. Again I suspect this took longer than usual because the other two nurses were working on the guy that got there before me and he was having a lot more work done on his scalp than I was on mine, so he got two nurses while I just got Nurse Red, who I quite liked so was grateful to her.
When it was over I slowly sat up and Nurse Red gave me an intravenous shot of antibiotics which she said was good for 24 hours. Nurse No English shoved a large chocolate biscuit in my mouth, followed by another. Another time no language needed. I knew this was to raise my blood sugars. Blood sugar or not, I’d been in surgery all day, I deserved a treat ;)
I felt ok but very tired. Nurse Red called a cab for me and Tuna has said not to pay more than 25 Lira. I wasn’t looking forward to this, fearing yet again a long-haul cab ride in a city I don’t know with a language I don’t understand while wearing a big pad on my head. I’m not kidding, it looked like it was just he night security guy on duty as we sat around waiting for the cab, but it was during this time that Nurse Red complimented me on being a good patient. I didn’t understand where this was coming from but she seemed very happy and sincere and would say it two or three times. Was it because on the few occasions we needed to communicate I readily found a way? Was it because I didn’t ask questions, that I just laid there and let them get on? I can’t think I did anything that would have made their day any harder than it need be, perhaps they just have more problems with other patients which is why she tried to tell me I was a good one?
I’ll never know but I really appreciated it. I very much wanted to let them all know how grateful I was for their effort, especially late into the night. I’m really confident they were more concerned with doing a good job then getting home on time. The Doctor, and I honestly can say that while I was content to have him come in and supervise the work being carried out rather than him doing it himself, I really would have thought he would have been there at the end to make sure it all looked good. He was long since gone, I think I saw him 4 times while the operation was being carried out. Just as well Nurse Red and Co. knew what they were doing.
To my surprise all three nurses jumped in the cab with me and got dropped off at various bus or metro stops along the way and Nurse Red gave the driver the hotel address and paid him 25 Lira and told me it was all paid I didn’t have to worry. I couldn’t talk to them but they were all laughing and chatting away in the cab and I felt really happy they were all ending a long day on a high. Nurse Red was the last to get out and I thanked her again.
It was just me and the no English driver, who, bless him, I believe was trying to point out things of interest which did nothing but cause me anxiety. Was he saying “that’s an ancient monument” or was he saying “I’m just going to drop you here and you can walk”? I had no idea. He too got lost in the narrow and crowded streets trying to find the hotel and had to call the hotel for directions having got no assistance from me. I was very relieved to see the hotel again.
It was on my mind that I had told hotel guy that I would change my Pounds to Euros today and pay him the 70 that I owed, but clearly I had been in surgery ALL DAY and had no chance to do that. With my forehead red raw and a weird diaper on the back of my head I just said Hi to him and sped up to my room not wanting to be seen by anyone, I did look a freak.
Looking at these two photos straight away I can see there aint no smiles anymore. I had a lot going on in my mind. Most of those thoughts revolved around ‘how can I go out in the world looking like this’, which is a lot better than thinking about how much pain I was in, because I wasn’t, at all. Very happy about that. I decided that I definitely wasn’t going to leave my room that night, dinner or no dinner. I found a snack bar in my bag that I had from the flight over, bon appetit. I wasn’t that hungry, but I was tired and somehow had to find a way to sleep in an upright position. I was told specifically not to let anything touch my forehead, not to sleep on it, don’t move during sleep, aye right.
After calling Carl and having a chat about everything and how freakish I looked and I can never be seen in society again, I finally propped myself up and nodded off, for a while.
Eventually it was the next day and I gingerly made my way down to breakfast. There were two other people having breakfast and I felt so sorry for them having to eat while Frankenstein was in the room. Quickly ate and fled back up to my room. I thought long and hard about if I was going to go out in public, if so, how would I disguise my head? I tried various methods but I kept thinking about how adamant the nurses were that NOTHING touch the new hair, not a hat, not a cloth, nothing! I eventually came to the conclusion that I did not fly all this way, pay all this money, go through an entire day of surgery, to have my vanity damage my new hair or stop me from taking this one chance to explore a bit of Istanbul. Screw what anyone else things of my look, I was going out without any form of disguise and the world would just have to deal.
Tuna had given me instructions on which metro line would take me into the Old Town in Sultanahmet, where I could explore the Grand Bizarre and the famed Blue Mosque. I had to be back at the hotel to meet Tuna to be taken for my follow up appointment at 4.45pm, but until then, the day was mine.
As I made my way slowly (compared to all the local commuters) through the metro station a woman came up to me and asked if I spoke English and what surgery had I had? I told her and she said she was asking on behalf of her nephew who was considering it, how did it go and would I recommend them? Considering I was expecting grief from strangers about looking so wack, this interlude came as an unexpected surprise, I was happy to answer her questions.
Probably because I had used the metro the day before with Tuna the process didn’t seem that complicated. I went up to a machine and it was 4 Lira to get a token to use the metro. I’m not sure if it runs on zones or anything but I put in my 4 Lira, collected a token. Once I found the line I thought I needed to be on I asked an attendant and he confirmed I was in the right place. Deposited token into turn style, walked into metro landing, awaited next train, boarded next train, followed the map inside the train which illuminates the next stop its heading for, got off at the stop Tuna said to (3 stops down the track) and hey presto, I was some place I didn’t quite sure know where that was?
I did have a basic map from the hotel but after 25 minutes of wandering this way and that I finally showed my map to a hotel porter and asked him where I was on the map. After a couple minutes of studying it, he pointed to a spot about an inch off the page! Well that explained why I couldn’t find my location on it.
Again I had to turn on my phones roaming data to use the map feature and within a few moments I could see how far away I was from the Grand Bizarre and what I needed to do to get there. Once there I was on my map from the hotel and could navigate the rest of the way without using my phone. The metro station was quite close to a University, which was close to the Bizarre and on route I passed a currency exchange place. I wasn’t convinced I was going to get the best rate but I needed 70 Euros and I got them, and it was pretty bang on to what I expected so not a rip off. I also picked up another 4 Lira coins so I could get a token for the return metro back to the hotel.
I really had no idea what to expect of the Grand Bizarre but I was immediately impressed that I’d not seen anything else like it, ever. As I don’t much care for shopping I just walked on through to the other side so I could head towards the blue Mosque. As I walked I noticed more and more stray cats just making their way through the very noisy and crowded streets. As a bit of a cat lover I delighted in seeing them but I wasn’t going to touch any of them.
I really enjoyed my walk into the historic center, the controlled chaos of the traffic, the architecture so far removed from anything I see in my life, the sights and the sounds, the aromas. I was walking past a row of shops when I smelt something delicious, so I took a deeper (and audible) breath in to work out what it was and where it was. I heard a man say “yes sir” with a rather proud sound in his voice and a smile on his face. I turned to see who had spoken to me I realized I was standing right in front of his spice store. So many curiosities. I was just mad about the buildings and how the streets rarely gave up a square inch to the public, every space was used. It looked a lot more like how I imagine a city in India to look rather than Nights of Arabia.
It’s just so liberating to explore a new place on ones own. No compromise required. I may have looked odd but with that in mind the best thing about having surgery on your head is that you cant see it! I very often forgot what I must have looked like and just carried on with my day.
A stones throw from the mosque I happened upon this gorgeous old building. I could have taken a thousand photos of proper buildings, but this wreck held my attention for some time and I imagined the glory of restoring it, the challenges! What a project. I walked on around the Blue Mosque looking for a unique place to take its photo and came upon a hotel with a roof terrace restaurant that over looked the mosque. The menu was about 10 Lira more expensive than other places but I had 250 Lira to spend and only this outing really to spend it, I felt fine living it up for a stand out view. Sadly the roof terrace was closed due to the rain, gutted. It had stopped raining by the time I left my hotel but the sky was still quite grey and unsettled looking.
Giving up on finding lunch with a view I found this place in the shadow of the mosque. Apparently I chose badly. My meal wasn’t very tasty and the meat was pink in the middle. I left lunch very disappointed and feeling a bit queezy like I’d just eaten something very fatty. I walked back up to the mosque and was impressed to be standing before it. I cant say I ever expected to be standing in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, on my own, having just had hair transplant surgery. Odd how life works out sometimes.
Well as soon as I got there the call to prayer began so I knew I wouldn’t be permitted inside at that time. I walked on over to the other mosque, but what I really wanted to see was the Bosphorus straight, specifically the Bosphorus Bridge, and with that in mind I made my way down to the waters edge. I couldn’t see the bridge but I stared out across the water and saw the edge of Asia. I just sat there for about 15 minutes reflecting on the past couple days. I had been so stressed about making the decision to fly to quite a foreign country to have hair transplant surgery, was it legit, would the surgery be sterile, would this be the worst decision of my life? Very stressed indeed. Yet there I was sat on the edge of the Bosphorous straight looking across to the continent of Asia, practically waving at Serbians, and everything had gone so much better than expected. I relished being me in that moment and gave myself plenty a ‘pat on the back’. I felt very brave for going ahead, very brave indeed. It felt like a huge gamble but it looked to have paid off.
I didn’t have a great deal of time so I made my way back to the Blue Mosque to see if it was open. I guy standing amongst about 5 others caught my attention and commented on how its more and more popular that we ‘Westerners’ were coming over to Istanbul to have hair surgery, I agreed, then he told me the road up to the mosque was shut at this time of day and that I needed to go this other direction. I thought that odd but said ok and began to follow him. Then he said “and while your’e here you can look in my carpet shop”. Nice try buddy. I walked back in my original direction and he kept trying to flog his carpets at me getting worked up and angry with me, I finally turned to face him and forcefully said “I don’t need a carpet”. It may have been the fact he realised he wasn’t going to get a sale out of me, but the look on his face said to me ‘fair point, not everyone needs a carpet’, and he let me be.
When I reached the mosque, now that it was open to the public there was a huge queue. Seeing the inside of the mosque didn’t justify waiting in that queue, so few things in life are worth queuing for. I went back on up to the Bizarre to have a proper look around. Just near the entrance I found this cute kitty sitting in the display of a shop.
I should also add there were ample dogs just laying about the mosques, I just preferred the kitties.
Indeed I looked and looked. Many things to take in. I walked around and around and around until I became quite mixed up and had to ask a shop keeper for directions, after I bought a box of Turkish delights to take back to the office.
Even though I asked for directions I still ended up walking and walking until I found the ‘street’ I walked through the first time I passed through the place, finally I could work out how to get out! Right would lead me back to the Blue Mosque, left back to the Uni and Metro Station. I pondered it for a moment as there were toilets you could use for 1 Lira towards the entrance Blue Mosque end, but I decided while that would be handy just then I could wait until I got back to the hotel, so I went left, or so I thought. I chuckled to myself when I came out by the public toilets, a little in awe of my natural sense of direction. Well I used the toilets and then walked back through the Bizarre in the other direction and came out exactly where I needed to be. Just of note if you’ve not seen them before the toilets there have individual urinals, ‘normal’ sit down western toilets and eastern? porcelain squat hole toilets.
So I made my way back to the Metro station and back to the hotel to await Tuna and my final check up appointment. When he arrived I just wanted to give him a big hug. While he is a great guy, I think I was overly attached to him because he was the only person I’d had a real conversation with the entire time I was there and as I had been uncommonly stressed, any friendly face was 10 times more amazing than usual. Even though I’m back in Edinburgh writing this I still think very fondly of Tuna and wish he had the opportunity to visit the UK. It makes me a bit sad to think that with the exchange rate and everything that made it easy for me to visit Istanbul, everything is exponentially harder for Tuna to visit Edinburgh.
He walked me across to the check up place which wasn’t very far at all. I told him about my distinctly average lunch and he insisted I have a proper kebab while I was in town. We got to the office to have my diaper thing removed from my head and as it was only day two, a lesson in how to wash my head which cant be done until day 3. If I had been there on day 3 she would have done it for me. The lady didn’t speak any English but Tuna translated for me. There wasn’t much to that appointment, she applied some antiseptic to the back of my head, told me how to wash it, gave me a moisturizer and shampoo to use on my head, some pain killers and that was it. She wasn’t very keen on having her photo taken but Tuna explained it wasn’t for my personal use, it was for my blog so I could explain to everyone what they can expect if they choose to use Welfareabroad, so she consented. I have absolutely NO IDEA who the guy is, he was just in the office and asked to be in the photo as well. I figured if this made her more comfortable then so be it.
With the photo done Tuna then asked if I would be Ok to do a little clip for Welfareabroad.com to use on their website, to which I agreed, and you can see that clip on this link:
That was the end of my medical procedures in Istanbul, but before I said farewell to Tuna we made our own clip se link: He really did make that experience for me.
While Richard from Welfareabroad is available to call with any questions and he arranged everything, he’s like Charlie in Charlies Angles. Don’t expect to ever see him in person, he’s just a voice on the phone. As I had all this Lira in my pocket, useless back in the UK, plus time on my hands before my flight the next morning, I was going to offer to take Tuna out to dinner but it was obvious he was keen to get away back to his private life. I wish I’d thought to just give him the cash as a tip. Back in the UK when I turned my left over 45 Lira back to Pounds, it came to £11, I’m pretty sure the 45 Lira would have meant more to him than the £11 did to me.
Well Tuna went back to his life, I went and found a place that looked nice for my last meal, kebab. To my surprise the waiters let me sit on the first floor window seat looking down on the busy pedestrian street. The place had plenty of tables free but to give a post surgery guy on his own a window table for 4, not complaining. No sooner had I sat down then a guy came over and asked if he could join me for a few minutes to ask about the hair transplant as he was considering it.
I found this a bit rude, on the street sure, but in a restaurant??? I said he had until my meal arrived. We chatted away and hopefully he got what he wanted and as agreed he left when my food arrived, which I should like to add, was delicious.
I thought I’d finally try a Turkish coffee with my desert, I don’t want to be rude but it looked like and tasted like mud. I shant be having the Turkish coffee should I go back, and I would quite like to go back again.
I went back to my hotel and found a surprise pillow protector. I can hardly blame them, this would be the first night I slept without my head nappy so there was bound to be some form of stain. I should have taken a photo of the other side of the protector as it was the cotton side, this was the waterproof plastic side.
Sort of made me feel better that the hotel Welfareabroad use see so many patient/guests like me they know what to expect. I had arranged for my airport transfer to pick me up at 9am for a 12.35pm flight. Everyone had cautioned me about not leaving enough time to get to the airport as the roads are busy and it takes ages to get through the airport itself. I went to bed early that night, I just didn’t feel like going out. I’d already eaten so yeah, early to be early to rise.
The next morning I had breakfast, the transfer arrived, out to the airport and I was practically home and this incredible adventure comes to an end. Please be aware that at the airport you have to go through a bag scan security thing to enter the airport, then you check in, then you drop your bag off, then you go through the usual security and passport controls, its a process that takes some time and involves a lot of queuing. Even with all that I was well early for my flight, which pleased me. While I was walking around killing time I came shoulder to shoulder with another guy heading back after his hair transplant. It was a shame that he didn’t notice me until we were practically past each other, I could see on his face he didnt recognise me and didn’t understand why I was giving him the silent ‘hello’ nod, then it clicked and he said Hi, but we had passed each other and neither of us stopped. I wish we had of, I would liked to have swapped stories with another guy who had done the same as me but with a different team and heading back to the UK.
When I landed back in Edinburgh, having an Australian passport, I had to queue through passport control and the guy there asked me about my hair transplant, he even began telling me about using moisturizers etc, I think he’d been doing research for himself.
So here we are over 8,000 words in and what you really want are the dramatic before and after shots. Well today is the 7th day since my surgery and the redness along my forehead had decreased significantly. I hope it will be gone within another week, fingers crossed.
The back of my scalp has been the only problem area, its felt painful like my hair has been pulled and it aches, sometimes at night significantly so. The pain killers they gave me sort that out before bedtime. I am yet to wash my hair today but I can say that today is the day its been most flaky so far, which I assume is a sign that any scabbing is now healing and falling away.
In conclusion I should like to say that I had a very positive experience using Welfareabroad.com. It was excellent value for money. The hotel was nice and in a good location. The medical facilities that I used were clean and up to my expectations. Istanbul is a very interesting city to explore and you can do so with a bandaged head. If you can take a friend, but you will be safe on your own.
I would have taken comfort in reading someone else’s story like this before I booked my trip, which is why I have taken the time to put in as much detail as I can recall. This is in no way sponsored by the team I used. I cant say they are the best group in all of Istanbul, they may be, they may not be, I can say I am very satisfied with the work they did for me. Now that I’ve done it I’m anxious about what will happen next, will it take, will I have a natural looking hair line? Will the back of my head recover and look normal again? That will be revealed over the next few months, but here’s what I woke up looking like today 14th October 2015.
Just one other point of note, I don’t know why but they commented that grey hair is harder to work with than dark hair, I have a lot of grey so they specifically hunted out the darker hair from the back of my head. I cant imagine you’ve read this far if you arnt considering undergoing a hair transplant in Istanbul, or elsewhere, yourself. So I hope I’ve made it clear what took place with me, what you could expect for yourself and put your mind a ease somewhat.
Richard did confirm for me that if I got there the day of the surgery and I chose not to go through with it, my deposit of 10% would be non refundable but I wouldn’t have to pay the balance, which seemed very fare to me. In fact that made me feel much, much, better.
If you do opt to use Welfareabroad.com, and you do meet Tuna, give him a big tip and tell him Hi from Trey.
Cheers
PS: You can see my video diary of what took place using this link