Hair today, gone tomorrow.
“It’s been over 10 years since I’ve had hair, so I can’t really imagine myself with it,” Senior Ben Israel, who was diagnosed with alopecia totalis at age six, explains. “But then, I see those pictures from when I was really little. I’ve thought maybe things would be a little different if I had hair, but I can never be sure.”
According to Ben, he first noticed his hair loss in first grade when his hair would fall out when he bathed. Eventually, he went to a doctor to confirm the disease.
However, Ben said he was not fazed by the hair loss, which occurred over a three to four month period.
“I think at that age I was too young to think very much about it,” he explains.
“It didn’t really affect me physically. I was still able to play my sports and hang out with my friends. I definitely thought I looked really weird when I looked in the mirror, but at that age it didn’t really bother me that much.”
Likewise, his father, Dan Israel, said he downplayed the impact of the diagnosis.
He recalls, “I didn’t think anything of [the diagnosis]. The doctor came in, told us [that Ben] was going to be healthy, and that everything was going to be fine, and he was just not going to have hair. So, it was no big deal.”
Because he has dealt with the disease for so long, Ben notes that he rarely thinks about the social opinions normally associated with early hair loss.
“Maybe once or twice in the past ten years have [the effects of hair loss] really crossed my mind,” he says. “I never was really affected, embarrassed, or self-conscious about it. I just wanted to be real, I just didn’t want to be fake.”
Ben’s mother, Cyndi Israel, agrees that alopecia has had very little impact on their lives.
“We decided not to make a big deal about [Ben’s alopecia],” she feels. “We didn’t want him to feel like he was sick, because he’s not sick. There’s no cure. There’s nothing you can do. So we just made a conscious decision to ignore it and have him be confident in who he was.”
Now, Ben says he is comfortable in dealing with his alopecia.
“I think if I had hair, I would shave it off at this point,” he remarks. “I don’t have to buy shampoo, I don’t have to brush my hair, and I don’t get hat hair. Life’s easy without [hair.]
The lack of hair also affected some of Ben’s other medical issues. He was born with microtia, a deformity characterized as an underdeveloped ear. As the alopecia took hold, however, Cyndi explains, Ben underwent surgery to construct an ear.
“[Only having one ear is] not a big deal if you have a head of hair because it’s not really so obvious. But to go the rest of your life without hair and only one ear, it would be a little bit harder,” Cyndi says.
As Dan explains, the five long surgeries needed to construct the ear took place in San Francisco, and required up to 400-500 stitches in Ben at once. Ben, however, sees the positive effects of alopecia on his microtia.
“The alopecia really led me to go through these surgeries and help me become stronger because I went through such hard times,” he says. “I couldn’t walk and I still have hernia problems because they tore open my ab muscles to get to my rib. So, I had some problems, but [the alopecia] did help me go through hard times and learn to realize that I can achieve things, overcome these problems and figure [things] out.”
Dan also agrees that the surgery and alopecia have strengthened the father-son relationship.
“Ben knows that he can count on me and I know how he will react. I think [our relationship is] better because of the alopecia; I think it’s better because of the surgery because we’ve gone through so much together. He knows that he can count on me for anything, and I know that he’s going to be nice to the next kid that has a problem because he knows what it feels like,” he says.
Overall, Ben feels that his alopecia has just taught him to ‘be yourself.’
“You are who you are, and you can still be beautiful on the inside,” he says. “Don’t feel bad for yourself, everybody has got problems. You may not see the problems, but everybody has their issues. [I’m] lucky that [my] issue is just [my] hair.”
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