Dwet Fe Mal

"Finger Hurts"

Just when I think my medical practice isn't busy enough, or that I might be getting rusty, my husband steps up and sacrifices himself so keep my skills fresh.

Today I was in the middle of a yet another meeting--in French-- and therefore was lost in thought about the lecture I still needed to prepare. All of a sudden, I heard, "doctor, doctor" shouted from outside. My husband hustled into the meeting seeking his wife on a professional level. While I was in a meeting with Dr. Laplaunche, Patrick had been engaging some of the school kids in a game of basketball. He ran in the meeting room, sweaty and looking worried, holding up a pinky finger that was quite deformed.

Dislocated pinky.

Honestly, I've never reduced a pinky before (I didn't confess that when I pulled him out of the room and into our office), but felt pretty well equipped after a busy orthopedics rotation at a ski-slope clinic in WinterPark. After inspecting to make sure that the deformity looked like a simple dislocation and not a compound fracture, and seeing that he wasn't in that much pain (just grossed out by his doubled-over digit), I was able to click it back into place without too much effort and before Patrick cold fully grasp that I was taking hold of his deformed dwet. I don't think he's fractured it, and is complaining loudly about the splint I fashioned for him (although it didn't stop him from finishing his basketball game). I lovingly call it his Pinky of Power.

Of course all the women at school have had a ball at his expense, and Patrick has laughed along with them, waving his white-cotton-wrapped appendage. Velena and Gouka greated Patrick later by wiggling their pinkys hello saying, "Bonjour Patrick." He's been sharing war stories with one of the guesthouse cooks. She had asked me this morning to help her administer some shots she needed to give herself in the rump. Although she endured the "piki" in the tooshie without so much as a flinch, she happily exchanged dramatic stories of "ampil fe mal." Patrick dared to call her a "ti babe," and snorting in laughter, she teased him right back that he was a "ti babe" and her "piki" hurt much more than his finger, and that if he kept whining she'd have to give him a piki too. Funny how a cotton wrapped, post-reduction finger can create such bonding and entertainment.

God love my husband and the lengths he goes to help his wife and entertain his community.