Photo: The adorable and very loud parrots that fill the air with squawks at 7 every morning.

In clinic today, we had some interesting patients --

A 53-year-old Garifuna woman came in with an incisional hernia -- no problem, we'll repair it. However, she also complained of vertigo, and asked us if it was due to "wind in the head." I was intrigued by this comment. In traditional Chinese medicine, wind is one of the elements that can cause imbalances and subsequent health problems. However, I think the idea of wind as this woman was talking about was different. Dr. Pott told me that it is a fairly common Garifuna belief that wind, or air, can actually get in a person's head, or shoulder, or other body part, and cause problems.

A young man in his 20's came in for followup on several huge gashes he had acquired during a machete fight. The man was in good spirits, considering a 6-inch wound on his head, a 10-inch wound across his shoulder blade that unfortunately was infected and oozing, and a healing thumb which looked like it had nearly been cut off.

A 10-year-old diabetic girl came in with a ganglion cyst on the top of her foot. The cyst was not so interesting, but when I looked down at her hands in her lap, her right hand had 2 thumbs. I had seen this in textbooks before, but never on a real patient.