As I enter the room it is impossible to overlook a stainless steel podium on wheels that is covered in all manner of scalpels, tweezers, syringes and other instruments of precision destruction. There are little power tools reminenset of dentist drills, some of them connected with clear plastic tubing as if for vacuuming or pumping, and a set of hair clippers that look capable of shaving an army.
Besides the tools, there is a stockpile of translucent petri dishes, mounds of gauze, and bottles of betadine arranged in neat order on a sheet of waxed paper. It’s like the scene from a movie–suspenseful strings in the background building to crescendo–when the protagonist realizes just how he will be made to talk. My stomach starts to go a bit smooshy and I’m wondering if breakfast was such a good idea after all, but Nasia doesn’t let me linger.
“Please sit here,” she points to a chair on wheels. I do as I’m told and she begins drawing lines on my head with a black makeup pen. Clare sneaks into the far corner and snaps a couple photos.
“You have a big area to cover,” she concedes, “too much for one operation. I would like to move your hairline more back, but you have hair here.” She taps a small patch near my forehead that has refused to recede despite all the other hair I have lost in the last ten years. “So we must keep this line.”
She turns my chair to face a mirror which reveals her handy work with the pen.
“We can only do 5000 grafts in one session, so we will put 3000 here in front, and 2000 here on top. Her lines and numbers are drawn on my bare scalp like military invasion plans on a map. “Your crown area (think bald spot) we cannot cover, and will require a second operation in one year later.”
She notices the faint grimace on my face.
“But do not worry, you will look very good, you will be very happy.”
And that’s it, that’s what I’m here for, what we all come here for…to look good, to feel happy about the way we look. Even if there are health benefits from having hair atop your head, there’s no denying the primary motivation…vanity baby! I miss having hair. Of course I miss the way it looks, but I also miss the way it feels. I miss brushing it from my eyes, I miss ruffling it with my hand after taking off a hat, I miss flinging it side to side when coming out of the water, I miss how lopsided it can get after a night’s sleep, how the edges start to curl at a certain length, or how the sun naturally bleaches it over summer.
Sure, I’ve been told I look good with a shaved head, but who wouldn’t say that to a balding man? Despite having kept my hair buzzed short for going on three years now, the look has yet to ever fully settle in for me. I still catch myself in the mirror from time to time–Who is that?–not really seeing the person I think myself as. I like to pretend that I’ve made amends with my balding, that it’s simply a natural process that affects a magnitude of men and there’s no reason to lament what nature has taken away…but let’s be honest, if given a chance I’d rather have hair!
As luck would have it, Istanbul is the epicenter of a rapidly growing hair market (how punny :), and the city is crowded with men sporting the tell-tale bandages of post-op. Although hair transplanting has been around for over half a century, it’s not until the last decade or so that results have become far more natural looking than the “Barbie doll plugs” of yesteryear. There are hundreds of clinics in Istanbul that specialize in the leading FUE and FUT technologies, with loads of talented and efficient staff competing for business. So if you’re like me, with a trip to Turkey already planned and can afford a week of hotel recovery, then for just another $1000 USD you can reverse what nature stole.
Hair that is transplanted is considered permanent because the follicles used are harvested from a site on your head that is NOT genetically predisposed to stop growing. Of course there is no 100% guarantee, but most men retain the hair that forms their “horseshoe” balding pattern all the way to their grave, so if you can move some of that hair from the sides to the top then the chances of keeping your new doo are high. Either way, considering that I’m only 37 I figure the sooner I get the op done, the more bang I’ll get for my buck.
The following slideshow showcases the healing process from day one, until I get my first haircut around 9-10 months later.
Sure, the recovery process is long and at times painstaking, but considering that we aren’t trying to get anywhere soon, and we’re all more or less locked-down due to rona-virus, it’s a great time to stay put and let my body heal itself. Or that was my thinking anyway, before I was led into this torture chamber…
So yeah, the cat’s now officially outta the bag–I got a hair transplant. Most of you have either been too polite to mention anything, or–like my dad who finally said after four-days into his visit, “Something about you looks a bit different”–too oblivious. But as the recent Oscar awards demonstrated, people can be a bit cagy about alopecia, so you’ve all wisely played the safe card 😉 That said, I’m not much for holding my cards close, and now that it’s been a year and I no longer look like a character from a slasher movie, I figure it’s time to share the news. Not to mention, some of you reading may be interested in the service 😉
First off, I have to give credit to a handful of friends here in Turkey who were the initial guinea pigs, and then shared their experiences and recommendations with a bit of hindsight. I’m a shameless opportunist who probably would have never made the leap if someone I respected hadn’t blazed the trail first. So thank you to Michael, Pete, and Xander…I’m so happy to be in the Hair Band!
Obviously, big credit to doctor Nasia and the staff of her clinic who made the magic happen. She caters mostly to Turkish nationals, but is willing to take the extra time necessary to work with English-speaking foreigners…as long as you don’t try to ask too many questions 🙂
And finally, big ups to Clare Bear…yes, it is possible to undergo this process solo, but having a partner that can stomach a pussy bandage that needs changing while cracking a joke about a scabby head that looks like a “coral reef” is priceless.
In other news, we’re just coming out of our first winter staying hunkered down in Kas, which turned out to be the coldest winter in local memory. While snow didn’t actually fall on the marina, the hillside above town remained dusted in white for a number of weeks in January. Considering that we don’t have heating aboard, we were thrilled with our preemptive decision to rent an apartment from December-to-March and take advantage of the favorable off-season rates.
Not only are things just now beginning to warm up, but I managed to install an electrically flushing toilet just in time for our move back onto the boat. Clare’s been complaining about pumping the toilet for years even though I deem it’s her primary source of exercise. But now that we’re making preparations for doing some extended trekking along the renown Lycian Way–an ancient 500km trail that winds along our local coastline–I suppose we can afford to ditch the manual pump and get or exercise elsewhere.
So here’s to the luxuriant technologies of life, both the mundane and the miraculous!