Gum surgery

So this is going to be a quick post tonight. Not for the usual reasons (laziness, lack of discipline, dead battery), but because my mouth is sore and I'm tired.

Obviously from the photo this is a post about gum surgery. I can hear your question from here: "What do achingly cute German Shepherd puppies have to do with gum surgery?" Exactly. My first move when looking for a picture for this post was to go to the Google and search gum surgery.

Take it from me—like the surgery itself, that's something you don't want to do.

A couple visits back, my dentist noticed a small lesion on my lower gum behind my front teeth. Small though it was, they thought it would be a good idea to get it biopsied to make sure it was nothing to worry about. They also think it's a good idea to floss everyday. I'm not going to tell them how well I follow that advice.

Then on my last visit, it had gotten slightly larger. So this morning, at 8 a.m., the periodontist cut it out and sent it on its way. And really, is there a better way to start the day?

The good news is he's done this procedure a million times and seen a lot of these. Once he got it out and had a good gander, he assured me it's definitely nothing to worry about - and the pathology report will just be confirmation of that.

Meanwhile, I'm a little sore, but nothing that Tylenol can't handle. Ironically, for the next couple days I'm also on the same diet my daughter was when she had her tonsils out last month. Being the good patient I am, I'm following those instructions to the letter.

For dinner tonight I had two vanilla milkshakes from In-N-Out. Doctor's orders.

Hospital sushi

When my daughter was out here last month on her Christmas break from school in Iowa (don't get me started), she didn't do a lot of the usual things you'd expect students on break to do.

She didn't go to movies every night.

She didn't party with her friends at every chance.

She didn't go with her BFF's to Disneyland and stay until closing time, or until (SPOILER ALERT) Mickey and the other cast members take their heads off, hang up the costumes and head out to their second job. I'm sorry you had to hear it this way.

She didn't do any of that. Instead, she had her tonsils out.

Now, of course she could've had them taken out by someone in Iowa. But before you accuse me of being an overly protective, elitist west coast dad who thinks Iowa doctors—as educated, experienced, compassionate and stellar though they may be—just aren't good enough for his daughter, allow me to do it for you. You're absolutely right. (Full disclosure: it was an Iowa ENT who looked down her throat and said, "Oh yeah, it's your tonsils. They have to come out.")

So six days after she got home, her mom and I were in the Outpatient Surgery Center waiting room at Long Beach Memorial, biding our time until she came out of recovery. I'd like to mention her surgery was performed by our ENT, who also happens to have been Chairman of the Division of Head and Neck Surgery at Long Beach Memorial from 2008-2013, and is currently Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Long Beach Memorial and oversees all surgical divisions at the medical center.

I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, somewhere just shy of the halfway mark of the 8 hours we spent there, the wife and I were feeling a bit famished. But we weren't about to leave the premises in case the doctor wanted to talk to us, or they needed me to scrub in on an emergency surgery (I didn't go to medical school, but I did see 8 seasons of Grey's Anatomy).

So I made a run downstairs to the basement where the hospital cafeteria is, along with the morgue. Coincidence? I think not.

It was pretty much like every institutional cafeteria you've ever seen. But what caught my eye was the pre-packaged sushi. As you might know by now, sushi's one of my favorite credit card torching, bank account-draining meals. However the idea of hospital sushi was only slightly more appealing than gas station or car wash sushi. The good news was if it made me sick, I wouldn't have far to go for help.

I decided to go for it, but to also hedge my intestinal bet by buying a chicken salad sandwich along with it. As I think back on it now,I should have probably given more thought to the age of all that mayonnaise in the chicken salad.

When I got back to to the surgery center waiting room and started eating, I was spotted on a security camera, and the lunch police nurse was in front of me in a nanosecond letting me know there was no eating there as a courtesy to patients who weren't allowed to eat at least 12 hours before their surgeries. Like that was my fault.

But since my daughter was under the knife, er, laser, I didn't want to rock the boat. I decided to obey their rule. And by obey, I mean break it.

Since it was late in the day when I got back with the food, the only people in the waiting room were families of patients who'd already gone in. There was no one left for my eating to offend. I was still scared of Nurse Ratched, who was now sitting at her desk. So being the brave rule breaker I am, I put the sushi container in my wife's purse and snuck bites out of it when she wasn't looking.

Driving home after her surgery, my daughter wanted to stop at In-N-Out for a milkshake, one of the few things she was allowed to have for the next couple of weeks.

If I'd known we were going to do that, I definitely would've thrown the sushi back.

She screams for ice cream

Before I get to the post that answers the question, "Why is there a picture of vanilla ice cream on here?" I should probably address the other burning question you have: "It's been 4 months since his last post. What the hell happened?"

I'll tell you what happened - I didn't feel like doing it. There it is. I know, you're about to remind me of the many posts I put up about how I was going to be more consistent and productive in my postings. How I was going to match, if not beat, Roundseventeen.com post for post. Whatever. I get tired just thinking about it.

The truth of the matter is every time I'd sit down to write a post, all I wanted to talk about was that festering piece of shit in the White House. The unstable genius. The traitor-in-chief. But I figured there were so many smart, incisive, critical, analytical and factual articles and opinions being written about him - and not by the fake news - that I didn't really need to chime in.

So what's gotten me off my big fat bahookie and propelled me back to the keyboard and pictures of vanilla ice cream? My daughter is having her tonsils out tomorrow.

First off all, I think you all need to thank me for the fact you're looking at a picture of ice cream. At first I went to the Google and searched tonsilectomy - I don't recommend it.

My girl is home on Christmas break from college in Iowa (don't get me started). And we just thought what's more fun over Christmas break than having throat surgery, amirite?

Her tonsils have been inflamed for awhile and making her sick at school in Iowa, but her mother and I wanted her to have the procedure done by our ENT surgeon here. Someone we know. Someone we trust. Someone who doesn't use corn-based anesthesia.

So starting tomorrow afternoon, her diet for the next couple of weeks will consist primarily of ice cream, yogurt, chicken broth, ice cream, applesauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and more ice cream.

The good news is I'm not working for the next couple weeks, so I'll be able to lavish attention on my girl, and nurse her back to health while she's recovering from the surgery.

The bad news is since I'll be home, it means less ice cream for her.

Nailed it

I've known for days something was afoot. I know, I'm already sorry I wrote it. But it's going to be that kind of post, so you may as well start getting used to it.

This is not an actual picture of my foot. For starters, my story is about my right foot not my left one. My legs are also considerably more muscular from the exercise they get walking from the bedroom to the refrigerator several times a night. It's all about the calves.

Anyway, I've had an ingrown toenail on the big toe of my right foot for a while now. It had gradually gotten more and more painful, finally to the point where I had to do something about it. So I went to my podiatrist, Doug Richie, who also happens to be Jerry Seinfeld's podiatrist when he's in town. Hope I don't hurt my foot again dropping a name on it.

With my vast medical background, I figured Doug would trim the nail properly, the pain would be gone and that would be that. Were it only that easy.

He said apparently what happened is the shape of my toenail has changed, something fairly common as "one gets older", a phrase I can never really hear enough. He then informed me the best way to stop it from reoccurring was to do a minor surgical procedure called a wedge resection.

This little piggy screamed ouch.

Basically, it consists of numbing the toe, then trimming the wedges on both sides of the toenail so they don't grow into the toe. Ever again. Part of the procedure involves putting acid—not the fun kind—on the roots where the trimmed nails were to make sure those suckers are gone for good.

When it's over, he wraps the toe up and it looks like the toe in the picture. Actually, by the time I got home, the bandage looked a little more, shall we say, colorful. Which is why I'm sparing you a picture of my actual foot.

So if you need me over the next few days, I'll be sitting here soaking in epsom salts while I finish bingeing Hannibal.

By the way, I don't know if you noticed, but I got through this without any "arch" enemy or "He's a heel" jokes.

And we had a ball anyway.

The take rate

Stunning picture of the earthrise as seen from the surface of the moon. I thought I'd go with this picture because when I googled the subject I'm actually going to write about, the pictures were, shall we say, less than savory.

So just gaze at the picture and enjoy while I talk about my perforated septum. As I've mentioned before here, I basically have a hole in my nose between airways that needs to get repaired.

When dealing with medical issues of any kind, especially those involving a potential surgery - major or minor - I always make it a point to find "the guy." In this case, "the guy" is the Chief of Surgery at the world-renown, major metropolitan hospital where I live. He's responsible for all the surgeries in all the specialties. And, come to find out, his specialty is Ear Nose and Throat. He was also Chief of Surgery for that particular department for six years.

Let's say confidence is high he can get the job done,

I met with him last Friday, and we discussed how he might go about performing the surgery. One way, and the way I prefer by far, is closed surgery where he just works through the nasal passages with really small instruments and precision to repair the perforation. The other far less preferable way is open surgery, where he makes a small incision in the center of my nose, then pulls it back revealing the septum more fully. It gives him a better view, and more room to move. And it only leaves a small incision when he's done that eventually heals to be unnoticeable.

See why I went with the picture of the earthrise?

Basically he has to graft a material over the hole in my septum. As we spoke about it, he told me he was going to talk to reps about which materials had the best take rate, that is the percentage of times the material is successfully grafted and holds. There's always the chance it won't take, which would just put me back where I started.

Afterwards, I started thinking about different take rates in advertising. Like the take rate of creative directors who don't want to get their fingerprints all over every idea presented to them (low). The take rate of clients buying the work unchanged (low). The take rate of planners not giving some asinine insight they think is brilliant, like "the consumer wants a better experience to engage with and advocate for."

Yeah. That's just what they want (lower than low).

I was also thinking about the take rate for people remembering this post after they read it. My take was I probably shouldn't think about that.

Can we talk?

It's easy to take cheap shots at Joan Rivers. What with all the plastic surgeries that've gone both right and wrong, the raspy voice, the machine gun delivery of her material and the tacky red carpet shows, she practically invites it.

Plus she's been known to take a few cheap shots of her own (if you don't believe me, Google "Elizabeth Taylor fat jokes Joan Rivers"). All of that makes it easy to forget what Joan Rivers really is.

A pioneer woman.

Without her, there's no Sarah Silverman, Roseanne, Kathy Griffin or dozens of other female comics. Women like her, along with Phyllis Diller, broke through a comedy barrier by doing three things. Having great material, persistence and ignoring the fact there was a barrier at all.

There's no doubt that she's a polarizing figure. Her jokes seem to have gotten more pointed as she's gotten older. Or maybe she just continues to prove what a genuinely unfrightened comedian she really is.

And if she goes off the rails or crosses the line occasionally, she's earned the right to be forgiven for it.

Yesterday, during a routine procedure on her vocal chords, she stopped breathing and was rushed to an ER a mile away. On the way she went into full cardiac arrest, but the EMT's were able to bring her back. As of this writing, she's in serious but stable condition, and in a medically induced coma.

Love her or hate her, Joan Rivers legacy is every comedian who came after her, every woman (and man) she inspired to stand up at a mic and make people laugh.

She's also, like Don Rickles, the last of a breed of comedian from the golden age.

The night before her surgery scare, she joked to an audience, "I'm 81. I could go at any minute."

Let's hope not.

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.