(light guitar music)
My name's Mark Berry.
I'm 37 years of age.
What I do is, is that I take care of corporate events
for an international event management company,
and conference company.
- Do you want some of this?
- When I first sort of noticed
the hair loss was,
was on two occasions. I was
on holidays and
just away with the family and
never noticed that, you know,
my head was getting burnt.
And, in 37 years, being away, whatever, 2 holidays a year,
and just never had a chance, never noticed that I had to
put suncream on my head. So then that, sort of,
noticed it when I was coming out of the swimming pool.
I was going, "Oh my God. There's this sort of
a patch, that sort of was never there before".
So, I suppose the penny dropped.
I think, something was missing.
Here look ...
Boat!
I would never say I was vain.
I would never say I was sort of conscience of my hair.
And I think, coming from
my uncles and in-laws and so on, that,
they don't have much hair.
But there was a lot of slagging and there was a lot of
sort of wind ups about "your hair is gonna go",
but I never took any notice of it,
but then, when I suppose, the holiday happened, and
this patch just started appearing,
I was like "okay well there is something that
I suppose I need to sort of have a look at".
- [Voiceover] Having made the decision
to investigate his options, Mark chose HRBR.
And following extensive consultation, it was agreed that
in his case, a transplant would be appropriate.
Now with the date for the procedure set,
Mark visits HRBR for his pre-op check up.
Its a opportunity for the team to inform and reassure him
about the upcoming operation.
And it also allows them to perform a final health check.
On arrival, Mark is brought to one of the patient rooms
and given a health care questionnaire to fill in.
- Okay, brilliant. So we'll try and not keep you too long.
It generally takes between forty to forty-five minutes ...
- Okay.
- Depending on how smoothly we run through everything, okay?
But it's broken up into three separate parts, okay?
So the first parts the education,
so that's where I come into play.
And I go though the health care questionnaire with you,
as well. Alright?
- Yes.
- And what I'm going to discuss is
what to do before the procedure,
what to do on the day of the procedure,
and what we'd like you to do afterwards, okay?
- Okay, brilliant.
- [Voiceover] Vicki takes Mark through the questionnaire
step by step.
He is about to undergo surgery, and it's therefore vital
that the team have a full picture of Mark's current
state of health.
She talks through exactly what Mark should expect
from the procedure.
She then takes him through the post-operative instructions,
including a list of important dos and don'ts.
- So traditionally you stand under the shower,
you put the shampoo on the scalp, give it a good rub-a-dub,
don't think anything of it, okay?
- Do I have to be very gentle?
- Yes.
Instead of rubbing the product in,
we just want you to pat, very gently.
It takes two weeks for the grafts to be
completely embedded, all right?
So the roots need that time, they need the two weeks.
- Okay.
- So you just need to mind them,
but we don't want you to be a hermit and sit in the house
doing nothing, okay? - [Mark] Yeah yeah.
- Try to get some fresh air and get out
and you can go back to work.
- Brilliant.
- Is that alright?
Perfect. - Excellent.
Do you mind if I take your blood pressure?
- Not at all. Not at all.
- [Voiceover] The second part of the visit
involves a medical check.
The patients well-being, is of course, our highest priority.
So Mark has his blood pressure checked and is then taken to
a treatment room, where he's weighed and given a ECG,
to ensure that all's well.
- [Mark] So our industry is considered young, funky
and you know, it's very, very creative and
really what you're selling is creativity.
And I suppose, I'm getting older,
and the clients are getting younger,
depending on who you're dealing with,
and yeah, it just started affecting because you know,
I suppose, you are the face, you are representing a company
and I suppose, everything that that is about you,
is something, your looks, your personality,
how you interact, you know, you are the client facing,
and, yeah, it sort of, it did again, sort of
solidify to go well, "do you know what, should I be looking
at this?
Should I not be looking at it?",
And the decision was, yeah I should be looking at it.
- I'd say an average of 90.
- [Voiceover] In preparation for the procedure,
the team then make a detailed examination of Mark's hair,
in order to determine the density and hair count
within the donor area.
This is vital information that's needed in order to
accurately plan the distribution of the transplanted hair.
- We could get three to three and a half thousand grafts
in one go.
But Vicki probably explained the message in the inside,
- [Mark] Yeah she did.
- So if you do more of that running up to your surgery
we could get even more than that.
- [Mark] More, okay.
So the more massage you do the better, okay?
So I'll give you a mirror, if you hold onto that there.
- [Voiceover] It's important that the team understand
exactly what Mark wants, while being clear to him
exactly what's realistically possible.
- If I could bring it forward just a tiny bit,
if anything, I don't wanna bring myself to
where I was age 21 or 22, but just something that,
I suppose, when I'm in any photographs all I'm seeing is
this big forehead.
- Oh okay.
- And try and disguise where possible.
- So basically reduce the size of your forehead.
- Yeah, if possible.
- [Voiceover] The transplant will transform
Mark's appearance.
It will be a new and permanent hairline.
And it's the attention to detail at this early stage
that will help ensure that once it reaches full maturity,
the transplanted grafts look completely natural.
It's important that Mark's new hairline
is appropriate for his age.
All men have some kind of natural recession
of their hairline, as they grow older.
So when making the initial design,
the team are careful to take this into account.
- [Deirdre] Could we go maybe on the inside?
- No I think it's low enough. Maybe take this side up.
- We'll show you this anyway and see what you think.
- [Mark] Okay.
- Now, have a look there.
- That is just black marker. - Okay.
- And nothing set in stone, but this is just
the general position of, like, how far you would transplant
up to here. - [Mark] Okay.
- So we wouldn't, we would put little single hairs and peaks
out in front of that, should give you that
uneven, feathered kind of hairline, so it wouldn't be any
like black lines in it. - Okay.
With the amount that you're saying,
like three and a half thousand,
is that enough to cover all that area?
- Yeah.
It is on this design.
- Just concentrate on the front to get as much density
into here as we can. - [Mark] Yeah.
- And then whatever else we get, we'll just go further back.
- [Mark] Okay, so if you get the four thousand--
- Yeah.
- You're just gonna bring it, okay. Yeah.
- What do you think of the general position of the hairline?
- Yeah, I like it, it's an improvement.
(camera clicking)
- If you turn around and just face the back there.
- [Voiceover] The initial design is photographed.
The photographs will serve as a starting point
for the consultant and the team, on the day of surgery.
But for now, they will also help Mark understand
what will be going where.
- You can even see
with the line as well, that's gonna be the
transplant will go to here.
- Okay.
- So you can see it still leaves that high,
it's not too low.
- [Mark] Yeah.
- And if we look from the side angle,
you can see it will run perfectly around
and so leave you with that nice, natural shaped recession,
which is what you need to keep it natural looking
in years to come.
So we'd be transplanting all through here,
all through that existing hair.
And your three and a half thousand will probably
get you back to somewhere about here.
- [Mark] Okay.
- Becasue we want to make sure that we get density into it.
So if we try and spread the grafts over the whole surface
of the top of your head, you won't get as good density.
And the crowns actually not too bad.
It's actually fine.
- [Aoife] It's quite strong actually.
- [Deirdre] It's very strong.
Any questions at all?
- No, not at all. It's brilliant.
- You happy with that general design?
- Honestly yep, perfectly happy.
Tomorrow, that's when its sort of going to really hit me,
but at this point in time,
no I'm excited.
There's been a lot of talk about this.
It's been in the planning for three, four, five months,
and, you know, it's now okay, crunch time.