Thank you Dr. Lindsey and Shadow for your responses.
So I went to see Dr. Didocha for another opinion and he said that a major flaw w/my hair loss strategy was the fact that when I cut up proscar into 5 pieces (and take 1 a day) I am destroying the protective outer coating of the pill. This, he said, ultimately results in significantly less absorption of the drug. Therefore, he advised me to switch over to 1mg propecia (or 1 mg finpecia). By doing so, he said that I will likely see a "noticeable difference" in 6 months and should try this before considering surgery. Has anyone heard this before? I guess I'll try it and reassess my situation in 6 months. Why not?