Good girl - A patient encounter

Pona, eight years old, slowly and ceremoniously took a piece of paper out of a plastic sheet and handed it to me. She placed it in my hands with such care that I myself began to fear that I might drop it. I worried what might happen if I did. Might it shatter?

Once I had a secure hold on the leaf of paper, I saw that it was a page from a hand-drawn calendar. Written on the top of the page in perfect block lettering was a name--“PONA”--and the previous month: “SEPTEMBER 2008.”

Below this text were perfectly square, ruler-guided boxes representing each day of the month. Within each of these boxes were two small smiley faces. Each sticker, it seemed, represented three pills that the child had swallowed on that particular day.

“Wow…This says that you took all of your medicines!” I said with appropriate fanfare.

“She is a good girl,” said the grandmother, seated beside Pona in one of the exam room’s small wooden and fabric chairs. Hearing this, Pona stood a bit taller.

It was then that I noticed the grandmother’s shirt, which read, “Live and let live. End stigma and discrimination.” On her handbag were the words: “We demand free and compulsory education in Botswana,” and “We recognize and respect women’s rights.”

“I like the messages on your shirt and bag,” I said.

“Why doesn’t your tie say anything?” she asked.

I did not know how to answer. “What should it say?” I asked, glancing down at the faux-silk maroon kerchief dangling below my chin.

“Anything you want it to say,” she replied.

I thought for a few seconds and came up with no inspiration messages, so I turned to Pona and asked her what my shirt should say.

With a smiling face, she said, “Pona took all of her pills and she is smart and not sick...and...”

"And?"

"...and good!"

"A perfect message for my tie!" I proclaimed. I will have to drop off the tie for printing later.

Pona stuck a small smiley face midway between the tie's knot and inverted triangle, so that I would not forget.