(HAPPY NEW MILLENNIUM)
The Scowler has had a painful beginning to the new year/millennium with visits to his friendly Mohs surgeon. This visit was occasioned by a call from our friendly dermatologist, Dr. Florence Henderson Nightingale. Because, she says, of our Celtic (KEL'-tic) heritage, the sun has been doing a cruel number on us for many years and now its time to pay the Mohs surgeon.
The Scowler had never heard of Mohs surgery and thought Dr. Nightingale was referring to the Mohs hardness scale - you know talc is down at the soft end and diamond up at the other end of the scale. But no, she had never heard of the Mohs hardness scale - as all of you must know, named for Herr Mohs, the famed German mineralogist. Well, we were even. I had never heard of Mohs surgery and I fervently wish I was still ignorant of this medical practice.
I will spare you most of the grisly, bloody details but I spent a long, long 8 hour day with Dr. Donald "Digger" O'Dell and his sadistic associates. He began by peering at my carcinoma that was near another that had been excised some years ago and said, "Good morning, Mr. Scowler, it's a beautiful yad and dog is in his heaven..." Now I'm thinking I'm in the hands of some quack who is seriously challenged in the sanity department when his #1 nurse, Olga, whispered, "Dr. O'Dell is just a bit dyslexic, but he is wonderful when it comes to the actual gouging, I mean, excising the sections for microscopic examination."
O'Dell again, "O.K. sir, here we og." Actually, I grew rather fond of his dyslexic slips, it took my mind off the pain and the blood. After he took a slice of the Scowler proboscis, it was sent to their in-house lab for analysis. Then they took another slice, then another. They finally sent me home with half a nose heavily bandaged and nurse Tatiana told me to be sure not to bend over. I told her I was much too old for those sort of shenanigans which made her blush, so the yad wasn't a total loss.
Next day at the spastic surgeon's
With rare, for me, foresight, I had made an appointment the following day with a prominent plastic surgeon. After the usual 45 minute wait in his reception area, I was ushered into an examining room. The wait in the reception room was not too bad because it is unlike any medical reception areas in my experience. It was adorned with large color photographs of models in bikinis, two of whom I recognized. I really should say two of whom I could identify. The Scowler does not travel in the circles where he is actually acquainted with models, mores the pity.
This surgeon's name was Spencer Spangloss. As soon as we shook hands he said, "Call me Spike." I said O.K., you can call me Duke." As he removed my bandages, I could not help noticing that he experienced a tic or a spasm every so often. I began to grow very uncomfortable and his nurse, seeing my obvious distress at having a skin graft operation performed by a guy with a sharp scalpel who was jolted by some sort of spasm every few seconds said in her charming Asian accent, "Do not wolly, Dr. Spangross is steady as a lock when he opelates. It is much rike an actol who stammels but when he goes onstage, he is pelfectry O.K."
Mostly it was because I was so charmed by Lan -I think that's how it might be spelled- I decided to stick it out and I guess it went well but how can I tell? During the procedure, Spike kept murmuring, "Perfect, beautiful, great" stuff like that. I'm to return there Monday for a check-up. Spike told me that it would take three months or so for the skin graft to look like the rest of what was left of my nose. "Don't be too impatient urp (another spasm) and remember since the skin came from around the urp rim on both sides of your urp ear, you must check continuously for wax build-up."
As I was leaving, I said to Lan that I hoped Monday would not be her day off. She said, "Oh no, only flydays I am off."