Crutches and Feet

Today at ABC while treating a very sweet 82 year old gentleman, Fevri,  I provided 2 major Albanian language blunders...!  

përtac= lazy            pateric=crutch
dhëmbë=teeth         këmbe=foot

So...I was asking Fevri, in Albanian, if he had hip pain, knee pain and foot pain so I could assess his ability for walking safely. I mistakenly asked him if he had any pain in his "teeth".  His daughter quietly told me, "my father doesn't have any teeth.". Then Fevri looked up at me with a great big toothless smile...and of course we all started laughing.

Ok...so moving on.

I decided to try a pair of crutches with Fevri...He was doing great, much better than I thought he would be able to do. The only problem was...."ME". Everytime I told him an instruction or something about how to use the crutches...I used the word..."lazy". No one said anything to me until after Fevri and his family left ABC...then my intern, Nela, began telling everyone what I had said.

The seratonin levels at ABC were running high this afternoon, everyone got a good laugh at my Albanian blunders...!  Oh well, it made for a fun day...hopefully I won't make this mistake again...but I am pretty sure there will be more language blunders in the future!