Me and My Robot

So this story begins decades ago when I was a recovering dental student, a new business owner, and a young man who had lost his recreational basketball “hops” as well as the will to play 6-hour rounds of golf. I thought maybe tennis would provide some physical outlet and relief from the anxiety I experienced on realizing the scope of all I didn’t know that I didn’t know- stuff like life, taxes, compound interest, insurance, and payroll taxes.

And one day, following another session at the local park’s tennis courts, I took a shower, did a hygienic inspection, and discovered maybe I hadn’t stopped growing. I wasn’t taller. I wasn’t heavier. I made a point of choosing a profession not requiring my lifting heavy objects (I’d survived being a skinny warehouseman for three years during off hours at Cal State, LA.) But there it was.

Years earlier, my dad and I had watched a freakin hilarious episode of All in the Family and Archie’s Bad Day at the Hospital and a straight razor shave south of the Equator prior to surgery. A few days following my discovery, I was experiencing more Archie empathy than hilarity. Three days in the hospital and two weeks walking while looking straight down at my shoes, my inguinal hernia repair #1 was history.

In dentistry back then, any kind of marketing could land you in dental society purgatory. Amalgams and PFMs were the art forms. 18 x-rays went into the mechanical developer/fixer, and at least 15 were guaranteed to emerge.

Years went by and aside from the chest pains I acquired while playing tennis all day on weekends without drinking water or wasting my time stretching, I was the picture of health. But when NBA Hall of Famer Pete Maravich died playing pick-up ball at a Pasadena church basketball court in 1988 (at age 40), I became convinced I might also be congenitally missing a coronary artery. I demanded a stress echocardiogram and got an eyeroll from my primary care physician. After escaping the treadmill without leaving my teeth on the handlebar and hearing the results, my symptoms disappeared. When he heard I had sought out a chiropractor after spending a muscle spasmed night trying to sleep while sitting in a straight back chair, my PCP fired me.

It was like after the treadmill/chiropractor episode, I started doing stuff like going to the gym. And instead of spending time with oversized piano movers from Muscle Beach, the new environment offered up attractive women, focused on health, beauty, and flexibility. My first visit was a turning point. I immediately signed up, continued showing up, and stood, jumped, grapevined and even stretched while delivering daily in my newfound health culture. A colleague in town went to a gym in nearby Pasadena; and when he shared that a tall, cut African American who drew a crowd working out at his gym, turned out being Michael Jordan (visiting LA to do a commercial), I joined gym #2 stat. And I stayed with the same trainers and instructors in various gyms for the next 30 years.

Meanwhile, in Dentistry, teeth whitening, tooth-colored restorative materials and adhesion dentistry were making a long-awaited debut. The prospect of cementing anterior porcelain crowns that looked like real teeth hit me like a legit semi-religious experience.

Then, one day, 20 years after All in the Family, I was doing abdominals in class when it happened again. I skulked outta the gym, vowing to be quick with the towel in the future and keeping the new inguinal report to myself. Forever.

Time passed and fortunately my dentistry required no heavy lifting. I even managed to hire strong dental assistants, a young male associate dentist, and even my first male dental assistant with job descriptions that included changing the Sparklett’s water bottle.

For the next 15 years or so, we implemented verbal systems, traveled the U.S. just like a road show, and formed a strong bond with our community. Now, in addition to putting ads in the local paper, I was writing full out columns! And if someone edited my content, I fired them.

And I don’t know if it’s just a family trait or what? My grandpa died from a bowel obstruction when I was a little kid; but he was a 6’5” dockworker during the early 20th Century. I used to break the downcast mood when adults asked me how Grandpa died. I translated obstruction of the bowel to “destruction of the balls.” Back then, I couldn’t believe or understand why I was getting big laughs.

But seven years ago, the left side started acting up. Some of the symptoms included my continued barking like a seal with “GOAT” hiccups (it took me 5 minutes to clear the Kaiser waiting room.) And after discovering exactly how it feels to have a hose up your nose, I had another surgery. And this time, I hitched a ride with my Team Leader and her husband and ordered a pizza and salad “to go” on the way home. I devoured the pizza in about 20 minutes; didn’t need any pain meds. Having nothing to do with hernias, I also found a mentor.

I took the “Course that changed everything,” met Dr. David Galler, found myself onstage at the Aria in Las Vegas, and dentistry, for me, was never the same. I began providing Invisalign care like never before, attended meetings in the Bahamas, Jamaica, New Orleans, and of course Las Vegas, and became part of something bigger than myself- a dominant, progressive organization, with core values like Family and Support.

I sold my practice to a friend last year and the new guy has been kind and generous enough to let me hang around without the threat of a mandatory injunction (so far.)

A week ago, after being scared off years ago by a kid patient who turned out to be a General Surgeon (Don’t do bilateral at your age- WTH), a consult with a surgeon with at least one eye on the time clock, and then freakin Covid-19, I got fixed, I mean repaired. And after 7 years, my 2016 surgeon looked like a teenager…with a few white hairs. We went laparoscopic, robot assisted. The anesthesia nurse called post-op the “Happy Hour.” My ride home was courtesy, once again, of Team Leader Dani. We ordered Italian to go, and I negotiated a 2 mile walk after dinner.

Dentistry is digital, minimally invasive, and with procedures that used to take two weeks, now accomplished in one day. A pandemic slowed us down, but not for long.

And I guess, as hernia repairs advance, so goes Dentistry.