Vet on the Loose (16 page)

O
ne of my sisters studied medicine at UCD, and was already a surgical intern when I started at veterinary college. By the time I qualified, she had risen to the rank of specialist registrar in orthopaedic surgery. We got on very well and often spent an evening in the pub comparing case notes. In some ways, the similarities between our chosen professions were remarkable; in others they couldn’t have been further apart.

‘So, what did you do when you realised that the horse had a twisted gut?’ she would ask, taking a swig of her black rum and Coke.

‘Sure, I had to shoot him,’ I replied dolefully. ‘The owner had no money and, even if he had, I don’t think the horse would have survived the journey to the referral hospital.’

Often, I would be in the middle of telling her some tale when I would notice her incredulous face as she pictured me doing the best I could in some arduous circumstances. She made gallant attempts to hide her shocked reactions to some of my more vivid descriptions of the various emergency situations I had encountered.

‘Why couldn’t you have referred the bullock to one of the hospitals,’ she would ask, ‘instead of just slashing him open in the field in the middle of the night without any help?’

‘But they’d never pay for that! Sure, he was worth very little by then,’ I would answer lamely. Luckily, the expression ‘economically viable’ doesn’t register in the world of human medicine.

Such scenarios became more complicated where pets were involved. Ongoing advances in veterinary medicine meant that new treatment options were constantly becoming available, especially in the case of ‘companion animals’. More and more, we found that our clients were becoming familiar with new procedures from sources such as the internet and popular veterinary programmes on television. However, these programmes often failed to mention the price of such a level of care, which in many cases would be beyond the budget of the average
pet-owner.
When owners couldn’t afford the expensive procedures which we were increasingly able to offer, it was left to the practitioner to carry out what could only be described as a ‘salvage procedure’.

‘You don’t mean to say you amputated his leg when he only had a fractured talus with a dislocated hock?’ my sister would ask in amazement (after my brief sketch of the anatomy of the joint on a beer mat).

She particularly found it hard to believe that straight out of college you were expected to be able to do more or less any job on hand without any backup. ‘So you just washed your hands and started cutting the cow open, despite the fact you’d
never
done a caesarean before?!’

I think she was slightly jealous, if truth be told. After one year out of college, I had probably got more ‘hands-on experience’ in surgery than she had gained in her years of intensive training. Of course, I wouldn’t like to start comparing success rates or mortality rates and I’m glad I never had to operate on a human. The trial-and-error principle isn’t always very satisfactory when it comes to surgery.

It took my sister a while to stop asking questions like: ‘Why didn’t you send him for a brain scan?’ or ‘Why didn’t you put him in the intensive care unit instead of leaving him lying in a kennel?’

One night, having described to her how frustrated I was by my lack of equipment, I opened the back of my jeep to show her my array of drugs and instruments.

‘This is my hospital,’ I said. ‘This is all I have.’

I was glad she didn’t notice the humane-killer lying in its pouch under the car seat.

Often
I
envied
her
her job as she would describe a night in the trauma unit: ‘Well, we weren’t sure how severe the damage was, so I sent him off for an MRI scan. When that came back, we decided to operate, so I rang the consultant and then the anaesthetists came in to get him ready. When the consultant and I had finished on his orthopaedic injuries, we called in the plastics team and went off for coffee. We spoke to the relations after. They were so grateful to us.’

I would nod knowingly, mentally converting the scenario into the veterinary equivalent: ‘Well, I wasn’t sure how severe the damage was so I just hoped for the best and gave him a shot of steroids. The owner said the last bill he’d got from us was a bloody joke – imagine charging fifty euro to calve a cow at night! – and he bloody well wasn’t going to pay this time. I decided I’d have to operate on the bullock but I’d never done it before so I rang my boss to ask him if he could give me a hand and he told me to get stuffed, he was in the pub. So I just got on with it as best I could, knowing the farmer had no intention of paying the bill anyway. When I finally left the yard at
half-past
one in the morning, having spent another hour stitching up the animal’s wounds after I’d finished treating the other injuries, the farmer told me all bloody vets were a waste of time anyway and he didn’t know why he’d bothered to call me out in the first place.’

But despite all that, I wouldn’t have swapped jobs with her for all the money in the world. At the end of the day, as a vet I was dealing with animals and the worst that could happen would be a very upset owner or a court summons with the Veterinary Defence Society to defend me.

At times, my sister would describe cases where she and the medical team would be dealing with young men left paralysed for life after a motorbike injury, or a young mother or child dying on the surgical table. Matters of life and death took on a whole other dimension in her job.

It is amazing the number of people who have said to me that a vet must be better than any doctor because we study so many species of animal and have to do everything – no referring of patients off to the specialists. In ways, they are right, but they forget one simple point. Although we do indeed study many different species of animal, we don’t study the human one.

Even so, it was not uncommon for me to arrive out on a call to a yard and be asked: ‘Oh, while you’re here you couldn’t ever check my wife’s leg? She went down to the doctor yesterday but those people know nothing. She’d be much happier if you had a look at it.’ I would politely decline, explaining that our veterinary insurance didn’t extend to carrying out nixers on humans.

Despite the differences between our professions, my sister and I would often find it useful to check things with each other. Once she rang me from casualty wondering what sort of antibiotic would be suitable for a farmer who had stabbed himself with a silage fork. The correct one was totally different to what the consultant had prescribed – in his blissful urban ignorance he didn’t know that silage was acidic. On another occasion, she rang about a child who had been bitten by a sheep and now had an unusual-looking growth on her finger. I was immediately able to diagnose orf – a common viral infection in sheep that is contagious to humans.

Once I rang her during one of our regular ‘salvage’ jobs to see what sort of pins and screws would be best to repair a shattered femur in a collie. Having got the necessary dimensions, I went off to Woodies to find a cheaper equivalent!

Sometimes, having access to the type of equipment used in human medicine would be a huge boon for vets. One night, my sister explained to me about the saws they used to remove plaster casts in children. The saw was like an ordinary saw but had the distinguishing feature of being sensitive to human tissue so the blade wouldn’t cut through flesh. This could be a great advancement in our attempts at cast removal, I thought, which were generally slow and painstaking as we took great care not to cut into the delicate tissues of the animal’s leg. The job was so tedious that it often influenced how much casting material you would put on in the first place. Unless you knew that someone else was going to take it off, you held back on putting on too much.

‘No, believe me,’ I once explained to a farmer, whose bull calf needed an extra-large quantity. ‘The cast must come off on Wednesday the twelfth – not a day sooner or later.’ I knew that I was going to a conference in Dublin that day and so one of the others would have to carry out the tiresome procedure!

When I heard about my sister’s saw, I put in an order for one from her immediately. Luckily, there was a delay in getting it. She rang me from work one evening to tell me about a very small and frightened child who came in to have her cast removed from her arm. Every time the doctor turned the saw on, she shrieked and yelled and refused to let him near her. She clutched her Winnie the Pooh teddy bear and buried her head in her mother’s arms.

Eventually the doctor got frustrated, not wanting to have to put her through an anaesthetic for such a simple procedure. He fancied himself as being good with children and eventually managed to persuade her to hand over Winnie the Pooh to demonstrate that it didn’t hurt. As he ran the saw up and down the teddy bear’s arm, all was going well and the little girl was nearly ready to follow her brave bear’s example. Then one of the threads in the teddy’s arm caught in the saw and Winnie the Pooh was promptly shredded into dozens of tiny pieces, sending puffs of sawdust and red clothing in all directions. I never heard if they managed to get the plaster off the child but I decided that I would probably be safer not to experiment with the wonder saw because of the similarities of texture between many of our patients and that of Winnie the Pooh!

When I qualified as a veterinary surgeon my sister gave me a present of a hardback book, grandly titled
An Atlas of Veterinary Surgery
. Inside she inscribed it with words that just about summed up the differences in our jobs: ‘
Best wishes in your future career!! Hope this is occasionally useful as an alternative to a bullet in the head.’

E
ven though I had qualified as a veterinary surgeon just before the onset of the twenty-first century, life as a mixed-animal vet was still, to a large extent, dominated by men. This state of affairs didn’t particularly worry me. Like anything, it had its advantages and disadvantages, and you just had to make the most of it. It often amused me when farmers insisted on catching or holding an animal for me. I think they expected less of the ‘more delicate sex’ and, to be perfectly honest, it suited me just fine – I didn’t feel the need to prove to myself or to anyone else that I was better than any man. If it meant I had less work to do, I wasn’t going to object!

During my student years, I had become accustomed to farmers bringing out a basin of hot water, an unopened bar of soap and a crisp, clean towel for my benefit while the male vet was expected to hose down under a cold tap. I felt I could put up with such discrimination.

I don’t know whether it was because I was a female, or because of some half-starved look I had about me, but I rarely left any place without being offered vast quantities of refreshments, which I availed of on a regular basis.

Of course, being female didn’t always work to my advantage; some farmers seemed to have a particular problem with the whole concept of a female vet. Even in cases where everything worked out beautifully, and I regularly saved their animals from the jaws of death, they failed to be impressed. Needless to say, if anything ever went wrong, I was the biggest waste of space ever created. But I became a thick-skinned waste of space.

One of the most notorious offenders in this regard was a farmer by the name of Wayne McLoughlin. What made him worse was the fact that he was not only young, but also well-educated. I could forgive the ageing bachelors, who had farmed for generations while the nearest their womenfolk got to the farm was feeding the calves or the hens. Equally, I could forgive the younger hill farmers who had barely completed any formal education and lived in the few remaining remote pockets where even women going into pubs was still frowned upon. But Wayne had no such excuse. He was in his early thirties and had been reared on a progressive dairy farm. After school, he had gone to UCD and completed a degree in agricultural science. I don’t know how he had got on with his female colleagues but obviously they had left no favourable impression on him – certainly not in an academic sense anyway.

The first time I met him, I observed a tall, powerfully built man striding across the yard with a welcoming smile. He was obviously admiring the jeep. As I opened the door and stepped out, the smile dropped from his face.

‘Oh for God’s sake, not another bloody female vet!’

‘I don’t believe it,’ I retorted cheerfully, ‘not another male farmer!’ My sarcasm was lost on him, however.

‘This is a good pedigree cow of mine. She needs a caesarean and I don’t want her messed around.’

I’m always ready to admit that a lot of farmers have more experience than I do, but it really annoys me when I’m told what to do. Caesarean sections in cows are something that are demanded on a regular basis when somebody panics. I’ve often noticed that the most educated farmers are the most inclined to do this. But it’s not an operation to be undertaken lightly. Of course there are occasions where there is no alternative but, in many cases, with a little bit of patience in giving a young heifer a chance to get on with the job, or with a bit of careful manipulation, it can be avoided.

I’ve always noticed that the farmers who are the most vocal in demanding a caesarean are the ones most likely to complain when the job is done and the panic over. ‘Not much of a calf, is he? A bit of a pull would have done that lad and saved us a big bill.’

After one particularly bad call – partly my fault, but also strongly influenced by an irate farmer – I decided to rely on my own judgement in future. That way, if things went wrong, I only had myself to blame.

*  *  *

On this particular day Wayne snorted irately as I pulled on a pair of rectaling gloves and applied a liberal quantity of lubricating gel.

‘I’m telling you, she’s for a caesarean,’ he stated. ‘She hasn’t made any progress for the last hour and I’ve had a feel inside her.’

‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to have a feel for myself.’

I thrust my hand deep into the heifer’s vagina, ignoring the impatient sighs and the eyes rolled up to heaven behind me. Although she had the narrow hip conformation of a typical Friesian heifer, she was relatively roomy in relation to the size of the calf. I was fairly confident that I could calve her without too much of a pull.

‘I think we’ll get it out with the jack,’ I informed the disbelieving Wayne. ‘There’s no point in putting a good heifer through a section unnecessarily.’

‘This is bloody ridiculous. I’m telling you, you’ll damage her with the jack. Are you trying to tell me I don’t know my own bloody job?’

‘No. In fact,
you’re
trying to tell me I don’t know
mine
,’ I replied calmly. ‘I’m not sectioning this heifer.’

‘This is unbelievable. Well, on your head be it. Your boss will be hearing about this when it goes wrong.’

‘I’m sure,’ I muttered to myself as I took the calving ropes out of their container.

The job took just fifteen minutes, most of which time was spent in relaxing the heifer and allowing her own contractions to deliver the calf with a little bit of help from the jack. The bull calf shook his head in surprise at his undignified entry into a strange new world. I was delighted as the heifer began to sniff at the ungainly little creature with a look of bewilderment. She was none the worse for wear.

‘You were bloody lucky this time,’ was the only comment from Wayne.

During all future calls I did at McLoughlin’s, nothing ever went wrong. It was one of those rare yards where, no matter what I did, it seemed to work. Yet Wayne always insisted on berating my best efforts and I continually had to put up with his ‘bloody female vet!’ comments.

I usually tried to avoid the yard, but one morning I scanned down the list of jobs in the office and saw a call to W. McLoughlin, Ashford, to castrate a young bull. Arthur had scribbled his name beside it, indicating that he would do it. When he came in, I turned to him.

‘Listen, I see you have your name down for McLoughlin’s, but I’ll be out that way testing just beforehand so I might as well do it to save you the drive.’

‘If you would, that’d be great. I’ve those two horses to vet out in McDonald’s and a mare to scan on the way back. It would really take the pressure off me. I just didn’t want to put you down for it because I know he isn’t exactly your favourite client.’

‘Ah, just think how much it will make me appreciate all the others then,’ I replied grimly.

*  *  *

‘I thought Arthur was coming out.’

I hadn’t expected any niceties from Wayne. None of the usual casual chat about the weather or the rate of the grass growth. ‘No, he was too busy. You’ll have to do with me instead, but don’t worry, it’s a simple little job. Two quick snips and it’s all over. I’m sure even a female vet can manage that.’

‘Well, this bull is going for sale in three weeks so I don’t want him going back on me. Have you ever done one of these before?’

‘Oh believe me, I’ve done plenty – many more than you could ever imagine!’

He glared at me. A sense of humour was not one of his strong points.

In fairness, in terms of equipment, Wayne was always well set up and I was glad to notice the strong crush containing my patient. The bull didn’t look like the type you would mess around with. I fervently hoped that he wouldn’t guess my intentions.

He glared malevolently at me with an expression he might have borrowed from his owner, as I sedated him. While I waited for the sedation to take effect, I carefully scrubbed and disinfected the surgical site. Having injected him with antibiotics and anti-tetanus, I then drew up a measure of local anaesthetic to inject into both testicles.

‘Now, get a good hold of the tail, please. This might sting a bit.’ I enjoyed watching Wayne wincing as the bull snorted in reaction to my administrations.

Normally the time spent waiting for the anaesthetic to work is passed in idle chat with the farmers – not so with Wayne, but I wasn’t going to let him away with it this time. I’d had enough of his sullen silences.

‘Isn’t this a really beautiful piece of craftsmanship?’ I began as I unwrapped the emasculators which we used to crush the vessel supplying the testicles. ‘Look at the way all five jaws lock so perfectly into each other. There’s no way any self-respecting testicle could overcome that.’

Wayne shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. Like many supposedly tough farmers, he took pride in his total lack of squeamishness, but a threat to one’s manhood was a different matter, especially from a no-hoper female.

‘You know, it’s one of the most expensive instruments we have,’ I continued conversationally, ‘but it’s worth every penny. It does such an efficient job. I always feel it’s a job well done.’

‘Do you think you could just get on with it? I haven’t all day to waste.’ I noticed his tone had lost some of its usual arrogance despite his gruff words.

‘Oh, absolutely, if you’d prefer. It’s just that normally, I like to give plenty of time for the anaesthetic to work. It must be so horrifically painful. But no, you’re right. We don’t want to stand around all day. I’m sure he’ll get over it.’

I noticed Wayne’s firm hold on the tail weaken slightly as I slashed a long incision deep into each testicle. I’m not really cruel by nature and honestly, the bull didn’t feel a thing as I had, in fact, given ample time for the local anaesthetic to take effect. The testicles dropped neatly out of their containing sack, suspended by the thick vasculature of a mature bull. Wayne was beginning to look a bit ashen-faced by this stage in the proceedings.

‘You wouldn’t be embarrassed to own those!’ I said cheerfully, but got no reply.

‘Now for the fun part,’ I said viciously. I opened wide the jaws of the gleaming emasculators and placed them carefully around the vast blood-supply. With great enthusiasm, I closed the enormous jaws and enjoyed the loud crunch, followed by a gentle thud as the offending article dropped harmlessly to the ground, having been severed by the final blade.

I opened my mouth to give further encouragement to my assistant only to be interrupted by a much louder thump. I turned and saw that Wayne had slumped gracelessly to the ground. For a second, I considered propping him up in the recovery position but on reflection decided that I really couldn’t be bothered. I felt slightly disappointed that the show was now over.

I tied the bull’s tail up to the side bar of the crush, rescrubbed and continued with the job without my audience. By the time I had finished, Wayne had come round and managed to scramble to his feet. He made a few attempts to bend over, as though searching for whatever he was pretending he had dropped on the ground, but he knew I wasn’t convinced. He returned my sympathetic smile with a menacing scowl that somehow didn’t carry the same impact as usual, given how pale he now looked. He didn’t open his mouth again, and I left the yard grinning happily, satisfied with another job well done.