For those who don't venture into Natter, Emmett broke his nose playing baseball today. He was baserunning, errant throw hit him square in the face. Screaming, blood, paramedic truck, hospital.

He's fine now, but he has to see an Ear-Nose-Throat specialist in five days. They'll probably have to do a procedure to clear his nasal passages. He wasn't in any pain when I left him with his Mom tonight, but his nose was not looking pretty. Please wish him pretty nose-ma, and safe safe safe and low-pain corrective procedures.

Dad update: It is small-cell lung cancer, and as such was probably causing the TIA issues he was having, since it easily spreads to the brain. The good news is that it responds better to chemo than most types of lung cancer, and he starts chemo next week. And Mom made it sound like the oncologist is optimistic. So we'll see.

Today at noon, I will be giving a seminar in front of the entire pharmacology department. I'm presenting a very difficult paper (I was told I had balls to attempt it on my first seminar). I'm either going to kick ass or be eaten alive. I'd appreciate all sorts of confidence-ma, calm-ma, and don't-ask-me-questions-I-don't-know-the-answers-to-ma. Thanks.

Our family needs some finance-ma this week. Nobody died, just a situation became...well a Situation. Not gonna tell you who with, but his initials are IRS, for one. Finance-ma and best-case -ma appreciated. Thanks, all.

I'll be dark from this afternoon through Wednesday.

Emmett Update:

His nose is starting to look human sized again and less leonine. Though he's currently sporting more colors on his face than Tammy Faye Baker. Two dark purple circles under his eys and a rainbow of yellow and green across his nose. We went to see his team's practice game and he was itchy to play, so I think he'll stick with baseball. We see the ENT tomorrow and find out if he'll need a corrective procedure to push the cartilage back and open his air passages.

New Emmett Update:

Fuck. He needs surgery this Wednesday to fix his nose. The bone is actually broken and needs to be moved before it sets - which happens very quickly with young kids. It's routine surgery, and he'll only be under for about 10 minutes. But it's scary. Stomach is in knots.

Afterwards he'll have a cast on for a week, then another week before he can run around.

David just called -- the operation lasted only 15 minutes and went perfectly. Emmett was out in 30 seconds and awake 20 minutes later, having had an excellently cool hallucicogenic dream in between, and is now nestled in a bed in the recovery ward at California Pacific Medical Center, watching the Disney Channel and munching on a graham cracker. He has a wee bit of plaster on his nose. They'll be leaving in a little bit, he'll have to lay low and be not-sporty for two weeks, and after that he will just be plain Emmett again.

HOORAY!