"I might have been attacked by a lion"

OK, OK, take a collective breath already! It wasn't me. I do hippos, remember?

Last week I was in a hospital on the edge of the western frontier and was rounding with an MO there. He had an "orthopedic case" and did I think I "could handle it"? Well, "I could give it a shot.""He was attacked by a lion! And now he has a bone infection and two wounds that won't heal." "And what made the lion release his grasp?", say I. "Prayer", said the patient.

Now I'd be praying all right, but for a quick death. Lions aren't known to clutch, taste a well marbled (western fat guy) or sinewy (lean Botswana guy), and spit him back out. So out came Dr. Mike's version of the Spanish Inquisition.

"Did you see the lion?" "No, I heard it." "And you're sure it was a lion?" "Yes, well maybe".

Lions aren't completely gone from this area but the guy was herding cattle. Why him and not a non-praying cow? And what about the horse he rode in on? No, seriously, he was on a horse...If I'm a lion I'm going for the low hanging fruit, the ones who have, maybe, four neurons and two synapses on a good day. Oh, and they are bigger, dumber, and don't know how to pray that the predator drops his prey (loved that sentence). In any case I had that look of extreme cynical doubt on my face, that one I got from the teacher when I thought I'd premier the "my dog ate my homework!" shtick. "Really? Really???!!"

Turns out he "might have stuck it on a thorn bush". Now things were falling into place. I half way wanted to keep the charade of the bona-fide history going as I marveled at this guys imagination and quick thinking (well, praying) to get himself out of trouble. The wound didn't match the bite of a large cat (learned that stuff in my Medical Examiner days) but was part of a large deep scratch.

The guy thought he'd try one more time, "It was were the lion scratched me!" Sigh, this was getting passed humorous and into a bit of a pain, for both of us. So like any dim watt bulb I decided to treat what I could see, feel, or touch. The history was amusing if not wholly precise. It appeared that he had two discrete areas of erosion on the affected leg with huge lymph nodes in the groin. Given that the scratch made more sense and the wound was more consistent with that, and the the wounds were multiple and grossly swollen, and erosive (graphic enough for you?) I thought that this might be the second case of sporotrichosis I had seen, the other was in the same hospital. So lion story aside I made something up about how these particular lions were known to have these particular germs and that is why he got this injury. He thought for a moment, agreed, and told me that I should learn how to pray like him so God would also protect me.

He's right. I should.