“Oh my hair, where art thou?”
How it all started
It was when I went to the hairdresser’s to have my hair cut, and she put a mirror behind my neck for me to check out how she had trimmed my hair at the back of my head, that I suddenly noticed a big empty patch of hair right at the top of my head.
Was that my own hairless head that I could see in the mirror, or was it someone else’s head?
I was left somewhat speechless, as a I sadly realized that this was my own head, indeed.
I secretly gulped at the sight, because I didn’t want the hairdresser to understand how shocked I was, and also because it seemed to me that she was having an ironic smile on her face and could hardly hold back her laughter.
When I went back home, I took a picture of the top of my head with my mobile camera.
What I saw confirmed what I had seen in the hairdresser’s mirror: A big area of my head had turned bald, and the “damage” seemed to be quite widespread.
Some background on the problem
Although, in the past, I had noticed a little white area on my head, whenever I used a lift that had mirrors so that I could see back there through an angle, I didn’t think much of it.
OK, I was getting older, like everyone else, and some hair thinning was normally expected, sooner or later.
My maternal grandfather and uncle both had a big bald area on their head, spanning from their forehead all the way to the back of their head.
On the other hand, none of my paternal relatives suffered from any baldness issues, and they actually had some of the strongest and healthiest hair that I have ever seen in my life.
So, I thought that I might be lucky and take after my father’s side of the family.
Unfortunately, it looks like that I wasn’t that lucky in the end.