Surgery day is a long day. I arrived early in the morning (about 7.45 am) and was greeted by the team. I changed into scrubs and was given some relaxants. Maurice explained that his team were going to work with me to determine the hairline and how it should look. A team of 10 medical staff using laser technology got a perfect map of a hairline and how the surgery would proceed. I just let them do their job. It’s a nice feeling knowing that you have the best experts in the Europe working on restoring my hair. Next I was brought into surgery, to remove the donor strip from the back of my head. I was facing down and I could not see or feel a thing apart from a mild tingling sensation because they used a mild anaesthetic to insure that I would not feel any pain at all. They then removed the strip of hair-bearing skin from the back of my head. We then went into another room where a team of 15 technicians, working on microscopes, were splitting the strip of skin into individual hairs.
Very quickly three of the team started planting these hairs into my scalp. While this was all going on I watched videos on a big screen TV, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Wave Ryder. I had to stay still which was not easy for me. The whole process was amazing, there was I watching Four Weddings and a Funeral while a team of 21 people worked tirelessly to give me a full head of hair. I took a break for lunch and then back to the chair. Joanne, the nurse, then told me that they were finishing soon. I was tired, emotional and excited as I had not seen my new hair yet.
When they put the last graft in I thanked the team and went back into the patient room and got changed. Then the nurse presented a mirror…
