You are sitting in a waiting room that smells of expensive air freshener and old anxiety, wondering if the person you just spoke to on the phone actually exists. You have a folder in your lap. Inside that folder is a printed itinerary for a flight you didn’t really want to take, a booking confirmation for a hotel you didn’t choose, and a glossy brochure for a medical procedure that was sold to you by a man whose primary qualification is a high-speed internet connection and a talent for digital marketing.
You are the middle link in a chain of three, and you are beginning to realize that the chain is only as strong as its least interested participant.
Lewis had a similar folder. His was digital, an email thread on his laptop that had grown to forty-two messages long. It was a dense thicket of CCs and forwards, a digital paper trail that led everywhere and nowhere.
Lewis was post-op. He had noticed a distinct thinning in his crown, a patch of scalp that looked less like a success story and more like a warning. He had emailed the facilitator, the person who had organized his “all-inclusive” hair restoration package.
The Shock Absorber Strategy
The facilitator forwarded the email to the clinic’s administrative assistant. The assistant forwarded it to a generic medical alias. The response Lewis