The Arthouse

Thomas, The Doctor On Call

It's a good thing I chose Latin as my language of study when I was in school. First off, I'm a doctor, and a lot of medical terms are in Latin. Second, this mother and son that came in. Now, living so close to the border, it's not odd to get patients that don't speak English, but usually they're speaking Spanish. It's extremely logical, living in New Mexico and all. But these two came in and started speaking fluent Italian. None of the other doctors or nurses on duty actually spoke Italian (aside from the one repeating the word pasta the same way one would meow at a cat to try to communicate with it). I mean, I can't speak Italian either, but I do know Latin. Because of this, I was able to make out the gist of what the mother was saying. She filled out the medical form in Italian. We had to get that translated after the fact. I was like, look, I've got kids, and I wouldn't want to see them hurt. That's why I helped this mother and her child before deciphering what she wrote on the form. Worst comes to worst, I'd cover her bill. It's the least I could do.

His foot was very obviously broken, but I X-rayed it to see just how bad it was. I'll spare you all the medical mumbo jumbo, but I will say that it was really bad. So we got that set in a cast and I looked at the X-ray we took of his nose. Now, I've seen some bad broken noses in my life, but this one was actually fairly standard, as far as back broken noses from falling down the stairs goes. It was a nasty textbook break. Even with a splint, it would never heal properly. The only way to get it even close to back to normal would be reconstructive plastic surgery, an option they were both rationally wary of. Thankfully, with the way it was broken, I don't think he would have any breathing problems in the future, but he'd most certainly have a more Roman nose than before. It's a very awful kinda irony, if you think about it.

Any other questions?