Happy Birthday To Me..

I bet you can't guess what I did for my birthday this year... No really,
I bet you can't...
Yesterday afternoon two guys came into Kaiam after having a tussle with
a wild boar, a pretty good sized one (we saw it today) that the third
guy with them finally killed before it killed them. One had the
stereotypically humorous boar tusk to the left butt cheek (go ahead, try
not to chuckle), while the other was bucked into a tree and dislocated
his shoulder. We spent the remaining portion of the day (I say "we" but
it should be clarified that our health worker has gone on sabbatical to
the bush, so a bunch of amateurs were left to muddle through as best as
we could figure) trying to reset a shoulder using the "weight" method,
which, unfortunately, proved to be unsuccessful. But the butt was
bandaged beautifully.
Today (my birthday), I had the wonderful experience of a feverishly sick
baby who wasn't holding down food. So, I got to learn about malaria and
administer some medicine to a 16 to 18 month old baby while waiting for
more detailed descriptions and pictures of how to set a shoulder to come
from Anton and the hospital staff back at Mambis. When the emails
arrived, it was a matter of figuring out how best I wanted to cause Mose
pain with the ultimate goal of a functional appendage. I settled on a
combination of the "Kayakers" and the "Yupera" method. Yupera is the
X-Ray tech from the hospital in Mambis who explained that by having the
individual face down on a table with the arm dangling, then pulling it
straight toward the floor with the palm facing "up" from the patient's
perspective you slowly rotate the arm in small circular motion until it
"pops" back in place. The "Kayakers" method helped with a 2nd person
pushing on the ball of the shoulder to help it slide into place. Having
two people was almost necessary because the guys here are deceptively
strong and only made of muscles. And since Mose's arm had been
dislocated all night, it was somewhat tight by this point.
Watching Mose's facial expressions was pretty amazing. He'd had a
permanent grimace on his face since I saw him yesterday, but when that
shoulder "popped" (and yes, they sure do pop) there was the sudden look
of both surprise and relief washing across his face. Add that to the
list of "firsts"...
I can't say I've ever had a birthday quite like this one...