Village Vets

by Anthony Bennett

  So I scruffed him, but somehow he turned around and bit me on the hand. Cats have very sharp teeth and they bite very hard. This one got me in the webbing between the thumb and the index finger. But I kept holding on because I knew if I let him go we’d never catch him again. In that moment of intense pain I did find time to wonder how he had managed to bite me. I’d had him by the scruff yet he had been able to spin around and sink his teeth into the very hand that held him. I realised that because he was so big, he had a huge layer of loose skin and that let him turn his head further than other cats. So I gripped it even tighter, but again Willy managed to reach around and bite me. With that electric bolt of pain, my every instinct told me to drop him and run, but I managed to override the impulse and raced to the cage. Then he got me again. Only this time he managed to get a canine tooth into the second joint on my index finger. It felt like someone had put a needle through it. I could no longer override instinct and reflexively shook my hand to flick this 8-kilogram feline away, but its tooth was still in my finger and, as I flicked, the tooth broke all the ligaments in my digit. Any children in the waiting room may have heard some unfamiliar words at a volume that would have broken OH&S decibel limits. Geoff came running.

  The cat escaped but we managed to recapture him. We got more helpers and did what we needed to do. The damage, however, had been done to my finger.

  Marie put the phone down. ‘I’ve made you an appointment at the doctor. They’re waiting for you now.’ She was my mother’s age and she really looked after me. She knew I probably wouldn’t have bothered myself.

  Unfortunately the bite had introduced bacteria into the joint and over the next few days it became badly infected. The finger swelled to twice the size of my thumb and then I started to see a red inflammation line move up my arm towards my elbow as the infection spread.

  The antibiotics I was on didn’t work. It was clear that the germs had come from the cat’s mouth, so I wondered if I should use the type of antibiotic that I’d give to a cat with an infected mouth.

  I consulted Dad about it. I told him what I wanted to use and he looked it up in a human medical book for me. He said it was cleared for human use but was most commonly used for urinary tract infections. He found the dosage for me and wrote me out a script. About twenty-four hours later the infection was under control.

  When my finger had recovered sufficiently for me to fill out a worker’s comp form, one of the questions was: ‘How soon after the incident did you notify your boss?’

  I wrote, ‘Three seconds.’ Though it may have been less.

  Poppy was mortified. She told me that if Willy got another bout of inflammation we’d have to put him to sleep because she wasn’t prepared to expose us to the danger any more. There was no way we would have let her do this just for us, but the thought was very much appreciated. To her, Willy was her darling pussy cat who slept in the sun and drank milk. To us, he would always be the monster at the back of the clinic. My finger is aching now just thinking about him.

  Willy with the sore willy has gone on to live a long and happy life, I’m told. I’ve never seen him again. But about four days after the incident, I went out and bought a Perspex box at a $2 shop and made up my own anaesthetic box. Just in case.

  DRINKING ON THE JOB

  James

  One night I was woken by the nurse and told that we had a dog coming in that had swallowed antifreeze. I got up and thought about what I’d need to deal with this emergency. The Jack Russell arrived in the back of a Ford Mondeo station wagon. The owner was a single mum of about forty, with three youngish kids in tow, all in their pyjamas and rubbing sleep from their eyes. She was distressed and a little bedraggled, with her shoulder-length blonde hair all tussled and lank.

  ‘We had him in the back of the wagon where he found the antifreeze,’ she said. ‘He chewed the top off the plastic bottle and drank it before we knew what was happening.’

  ‘What’s the little fellow’s name?’

  ‘Keith.’

  ‘Hello, Keith. What have you been eating now?’

  For his part, Keith looked fine. The toxic chemicals had not yet produced any symptoms.

  ‘How much did he have?’ I asked the owner.

  ‘Most of this bottle,’ she said, handing over the bright-green plastic container. ‘I couldn’t believe the kids didn’t tell me. They were like, “Mum, the dog’s drinking the green stuff,” and I’m going, “How long’s ’e been doing that for?” “A while.”’

  Antifreeze is very poisonous to dogs, causing acute kidney failure. It is also sugary and sweet, and therefore tasty and appealing. As the dog had only just drunk it, I could start by trying to get as much out as possible. I did my party trick with the apomorphine under the eyelid to make him vomit, but I knew we’d need to do a lot more. I read on the bottle that ethylene glycol was the active ingredient. I knew that the antidote to ethylene glycol was ethanol, but I didn’t have any on hand. I rang the UK’s excellent poisons information hotline for animals. The guy on the phone ran me through the rudimentary questions about how much the dog weighed and how much it had eaten.

  ‘Do you have any medical-grade ethanol for injection?’ he asked.

  ‘No, we don’t.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you need. The ethanol outcompetes the ethylene glycol at the binding site so the ethylene glycol gets excreted without damaging the kidney. We need to give it the ethanol intravenously so we can calculate the right dose from the dog’s weight.’

  ‘Mate, it’s two o’clock in the morning. Where am I going to get some medical grade ethanol?’

  ‘There is another option,’ the guy said. ‘You can give the dog ethanol orally.’

  ‘Okay?’ I didn’t see how this solved my problem since I didn’t have any ethanol.

  ‘Do you have any really strong alcohol?’

  ‘You mean like booze? For drinking?’

  ‘Yes, booze.’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll pop upstairs.’

  I ran as quietly as possible up the steep rickety timber steps that we’d dubbed the Stairway to Heaven. Rummaging through the kitchen, I found just the thing and padded back down to the phone. ‘Mate, I’ve got a Smirnoff Black Label vodka that’s about 60 per cent alcohol.’

  ‘Okay, great. Let me do some calculations.’

  I could hear him tapping away on his calculator, muttering to himself, before he came back on. ‘It’s good that it’s so strong. There are fewer impurities. You’re going to have to give the dog ten mils straight away then one mil every fifteen minutes for the next twelve hours.

  ‘Right, okay.’

  ‘So put it on a drip and give it all the medical care you can. Syringe the vodka in by mouth every fifteen minutes. We’ve got to keep his ethanol level at that sweet spot.’

  Keith’s owner was pacing the floor with the dog in her arms when I came back out. I had a quick look at Keith and he still looked ready to go out and destroy some shoes. But I gave it to her straight.

  ‘Keith’s looking fine now, but tomorrow he’s going to be dead unless we do something. The good news is that I think we can save him. We’re going to hook him up to a drip and then we’re going to get him drunk.’ She looked at me blankly.

  I explained it as well as I could then sent her and the kids home. I moved tiny Keith into the biggest cage we had and sat myself down in there with him and the bottle of Smirnoff and a syringe. After about an hour, Keith’s face was drooping, but I’m sure he felt like the handsomest, wittiest dog in the world. It was like he was about to start sending texts to ex-girlfriends before streaking down the common. His face went through a range of expressions I wouldn’t have thought possible. I was having a jolly good time myself, even though I couldn’t join him for a tipple. I had other patients to care for.

  I could do the texting, though. I sent a picture of Keith, me and the vodka to the person who’d given it to me as a present and typed PUTTING THE SMIRNOFF TO GOOD USE. My friend didn’t mind that I’d given i
t to a dog. He agreed that saving Keith was more worthwhile than what I was going to use it for.

  I love emergency work for its flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants energy. Often when animals are presented to you they are dying. You’ve got to get the history, keep the animal alive while examining it, then figure out what’s gone wrong and whether it can be saved. It’s stressful and sleep depriving, but so rewarding when they walk out of the clinic happy and healthy.

  Keith was fairly doughy the next day and really needed a Berocca, a coffee and a bucket of KFC, but we just fed him normally. We had to keep him on a drip for a few days and test his kidney function but he made a full recovery and went home.

  The owner bought me a bottle of vodka to replace mine. It was just a cheap no-name brand, but the gesture from someone who was clearly doing it tough was very much appreciated.

  THE BERRY SHOWGIRL BALL

  Anthony

  Barry Alexander wasn’t happy. His daughter’s pet Brahman cow, Indira, had delivered a stillborn calf then prolapsed. So here he was having to foot my bill on top of there being no prospect of a new calf to offset the cost. And I think Indira had failed to deliver a calf the year before too. Cattle people tend to be hard markers. Cows that don’t produce can expect a rigorous dose of truckacillin. But there was no way Barry’s daughter was going to let him do that. Indira, with her enormous floppy ears and great folds of dangling skin, was her darling.

  Barry was a knockabout type. With not a gram of fat on him, he had arms like Popeye and walked like he was shaping up to punch someone. I hadn’t yet got to know Barry and his mood didn’t seem exactly conducive to pleasantries. But I still had to do my job and get the uterus back into the cow.

  I was on edge about Barry but also about the fact that I was lined up to be master of ceremonies at the Berry Showgirl Ball that night. In a few hours, I would be out of these flyblown overalls and into a tux. I’d never been an MC before and only done a little public speaking, so I was full of nerves. There were going to be a lot of people there. I was mentally running through my speech and thinking about how I’d link up the other speeches and about all the things that could go wrong.

  A prolapsed uterus is a difficult job. It’s a heavy, slippery mass of purply pink meat covered in black placenta balls that bleed like billy-o if they tear off. Add to this the enormous weight – 30 to 40 kilograms in a big cow – and prolapsed uteri will give a lot of vets the shivers. To get the uterus back into the cow you have to support the weight while carefully finessing the uterus back into the cow and turning it outside in. I had Barry help me by taking the weight of the uterus in his Popeye arms, thereby smearing his well-worn polo shirt with birth juices, while I squeezed the uterus back into the cow. Indira stood calm and patient as we bustled the great bundle of flesh back inside her. It might have taken only fifteen minutes.

  The ligaments and muscles that hold a Brahman’s uterus in place are a lot looser than in other breeds and hence they tend to prolapse more often, but that also means it’s easier to push things back in. I thought there was a strong chance Indira’s uterus would fall back out as easily as it had gone in, so I decided we were going to have to staple it in place. I went to the car and brought out an intra-uterine pin. I put my hand into the cow’s vagina, covering the spike, then, once inside, I pushed the spike up through the uterus, through the muscles, out through the leathery hide and into daylight. Through all this indignity, Indira remained perfectly still and calm. She had been a poddy calf, hand-raised by Barry’s daughter, and was used to humans.

  I walked around to her flank and put a cap onto the spike, which was now sticking out her side, securing it in place with a split pin and effectively stapling the uterus to the cow. It can freak people out when they see this great spike coming out the side of their cow. But it does the job.

  The operation went well, which was a dangerous sign. Surely Murphy and his law were lurking nearby? It was a hot, humid January day. I was covered in slime, flies and cow poo, but pleased that I’d soon be luxuriating in a cool shower and sprucing up for the night ahead. I cleaned up and gave the cow all the injections she needed while I mentally went through my speech and my jokes one more time. We released Indira’s neck from the crush and I bent down to pick up a bucket behind her. As I did so, I saw a flash of light. I thought Barry’s watch had reflected the sun towards me, so, as the cow walked away, I looked up at him. But he wasn’t looking at his watch; he was looking at me with a horrified expression on his goateed face.

  ‘Did she just try to kick me?’ I asked.

  ‘Yep, and she missed you by that much.’ His fingers indicated a couple of centimetres.

  This cow had stood calmly while I’d perpetrated all those unpleasantries upon her. She had not flinched. She had not complained. But she’d stored it up in her mind. Just when she was free to go, I’d made the mistake of leaning over behind her and she had taken her shot.

  But she’d missed. My luck was holding.

  Turning up to the Showgirl Ball with a hoof print in my face – or my jaw wired shut or even worse – would not have been a good look. Cow kicks pack a punch. And the look on Barry’s face confirmed how lucky I was and how stupid I’d been to put my head in the way of that hoof.

  I got home and cleaned up. I pulled the tuxedo out of the dry cleaner’s plastic cover and ironed my best white Country Road shirt. The muggy heat hardly let up as the sun went down and all the Berry showgirl contestants gathered in their finery. The ball, as well as being a major date on Berry’s social calendar, is a major part of their assessment. The judges watch the contestants throughout the night but particularly while they are being interviewed on stage. One of my main jobs was to introduce them as they came up to be grilled.

  The building wasn’t air conditioned. I don’t know if it was nerves or the bright lights shining into my eyes, but I soon felt like I was the one under the grill. My stiff collar softened with sweat. The circle of moisture under my armpits expanded outwards to annex my entire shirt and my hair went limp as the product that was holding it up surrendered the fight. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated so much. It looked like it was raining in a little circle around me.

  But I battled on and was doing okay, introducing the girls as they came up on stage sensibly dressed in their somewhat matronly outfits. I came to a name I recognised, Sidney Roberts, and summoned her forwards. She stood and moved towards the stage in a dazzling, tight-fitting yellow gown with a long train behind her. Aside from a small slip on the stairs when her train got snagged, threatening a major wardrobe derailment, she glided up with a grace I hadn’t seen in the others. And on top of being stunningly attractive, she seemed more confident on stage than any of her peers. She mentioned that the exceedingly expensive gown was made out of pineapple husks and had been loaned to her by a friend. I thought she was a certainty to win.

  I’d met Sidney once before through some mutual friends but didn’t know her at all well. I didn’t get a chance to say more than a quick hello to her at the ball. I was up and down all night and she was over at a table with her friends and sponsors. I focused on surviving the ordeal of being an MC. And miraculously, despite the sweat-stained notes and the ever-lurking presence of Murphy, my luck held out.

  I went skiing in Japan soon after, so I missed the announcement of the showgirl winner. A day or two after returning home, however, I was walking down the street with one of the new nurses from work, Kahlia, when I saw Sidney sitting outside the Ice Creamery engrossed in her iPad.

  As I walked past I waved my hand between her face and the screen to get her attention. She almost went through the roof with fright. I felt like a total clod. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ I said. But because I was walking with Kahlia, I couldn’t really stop to talk.

  ‘We should catch up for dinner,’ I called out over my shoulder. ‘You can tell me how the showgirl competition went.’

  ‘That’d be lovely,’ she said.

  I made the international sign language symbol f
or the telephone with my thumb and little finger and that was it. It was a date. Only it wasn’t a date. There was none of the usual nervousness on my part that I’d normally feel asking a girl out for the first time because I really didn’t see it as a date. As far as I knew she had a boyfriend. It was not a romantic thing. It was just a catch-up. Really.

  Nevertheless, I was cautious when I rang her to tee it up. ‘Maybe it’s best we don’t have dinner in town,’ I said. ‘It’d get misconstrued if people see us together. Small town and all that. How about we get some takeaway Thai and take it down to the beach?’

  ‘That sounds lovely,’ she said again.

  We did that. I brought along some bowls, forks, a bottle of white wine and some plastic soft-drink cups. Just as we started to tuck into the spring rolls, out of the surf came Brad Tregonning, walking straight past us with his long board and longer smile. You might describe Brad’s mum, Shirley, as ‘well connected’. I knew that if Brad told her what he’d seen, she’d have her megaphone handy and soon the whole town would be seeing our little picnic as something totally different from what it was. Despite my concerns, though, we had a very pleasant evening and as darkness fell we packed up and I drove Sidney home. On the way, I asked, by the by, ‘How’s your boyfriend going?’

  ‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she replied casually. ‘We broke up months ago.’ The words hit me like a sledgehammer. No longer was there any road noise, I couldn’t hear the radio and my vision seemed to be coning down onto the road. I was in my own little world, nothing was getting in. I was focused on processing the immensity of that statement. I somehow managed to indicate right and turned the ute onto Beach Road, then the reality of the situation sank in: Oh my God! This is a date!