The account executive of bodily organs

Here's how my Saturday went.

In the morning when I woke up, I found my dog Max on his pillow in our bedroom. Now, Max comes and goes in and out of our room during the night, but he's never there in the morning when we wake up. But I decided to just accept it for what it was: he finally realized he couldn't tear himself away from me.

When I left the room and called him though, he didn't come. He just stayed on his pillow, looking up at me with those big, brown eyes.

Something wasn't right in dogtown.

We wound up taking him to our dog-walker's vet since our local vet's office was closed. After an X-ray, we discovered why Max was being so sluggish: a grapefruit-sized tumor on his spleen.

It sounds awful, but it's apparently quite common in larger breeds - like German Shepherds - and usually around the eight-year mark. Max is eight and a half.

We were in shock how fast this came on him. Just the day before, we were playing with him in the yard, and he was chasing, jumping, barking and just generally trying to kill us (not literally - we love to play rough with him). The day before, the World's Greatest Dog was the World's Happiest Dog.

David Feldman, a close friend of ours for over 25 years, and the world's greatest vet, explained it like this: the problem is the spleen. If it were the heart, you'd notice his troubled breathing much earlier. If it were his brain, we'd see him unsteady on his feet. But in a dog, much like in a human, the spleen is pretty much a useless organ that does nothing, which is why as the tumor grows on it you don't notice it until it's almost too late.

My wife called it "the account executive of organs." Before you get all over me for that, she was an account person in her former life.

We wound up driving Max up to David's office in West Hollywood around eleven last night, and by midnight he was in surgery. Yes there are vets and emergency clinics closer to us, but when it comes to the big stuff, David and his staff are the only ones we trust. After we dropped Max off, we were able to breathe for the first time that evening.

About 2a.m., we got a call from the doctor at David's practice who did the surgery, saying the words we were hoping to hear, "It couldn't have gone better."

Now there are a few ways this can go. The tumor they removed along with the spleen is either malignant or benign. If it's benign, Max heals up and life goes on. If it's malignant, we have maybe two to four months if we do nothing, and maybe six to twelve if he goes through chemo. And of course, chemo brings its own set of pleasantries with it.

So we'll wait for the pathology report and then we'll have some decisions to make. But while we're waiting, we'll do what we've always done: love Max as unconditionally and fully as he's always loved us.

There are four of us in this house. Max's magic is that each of us thinks he loves us the most.