Don't Turn Your Back in the Barn (Adventures of a Country Vet)

by Perrin, Dr. Dave

  "Oh mother! How did I get into such a mess?"

  For the next hour, I crawled through the underbrush, calling, cursing, praying, crying. I was ready to admit defeat when I dragged myself back to the house and collapsed on the lawn. Bea's voice had long since petered out, replaced with an ominous silence.

  Tears were welling in my eyes, and I had a horrendous feeling of despair deep in my breast. How could I have let this happen? How could I have been so stupid?

  I lay for a long time staring into the bright blue of the morning sky. The tears had stopped and the vise that gripped my chest was starting to ease. The movie projector that had been playing one awful film of misery after another in my mind finally ceased running, and I was possessed by an eerie calm.

  I played a game that I had invented as a child, while lying alone in the back field of our home in Casino. Staring intensely at the open sky without blinking, I was soon seeing millions of blips of light that flicked across the blue of the heavens. Swirling, darting, and jumping from one place to the other, they danced their way across the sky and through the full arc of my vision.

  The trick of the game was not only to concentrate until you were able to see the blips of light, but to focus on one of them for as long as you could. I had been playing for a while and had watched one fleeting dynamo for so long that my eyes began to burn and water. I was just about to give in and blink, when the incantation started running through my mind. Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight...

  Fred's voice cracked like a rifle shot, "Get out of here, you goodfor-nothing critter! You useless, chicken-killing hound!"

  I sprang to my feet and ran in Fred's direction—sure enough, it was Theo! Running for everything he was worth, he galloped up the driveway. He ran to me like a long-lost friend, certain that I would protect him from the devil who was hot on his tail. Licking his lips as if to remove the telltale feathers from the corner of his mouth, he hid behind my legs and peered back down the drive towards Fred.

  "Oh, thank you, Lord," I moaned, as my hand closed on the plastic rope that trailed along behind Theo. "Thank you!"

  Dick Douma was pacing up and down in front of the milkhouse when I arrived. I was a couple of minutes late for a routine herd health appointment at his Canyon farm, but Dick was acting as if I had kept him waiting for hours.

  "I'm in big trouble with a heifer."

  "What's going on?" I shook out my coveralls and stepped into them.

  "When I first noticed her, she just looked uncomfortable. She was getting up and down and kicking at her belly occasionally, but when I was in there a few minutes ago, she couldn't even stand up."

  "How old is she?"

  "Got to be around eight to ten weeks. Her mother's already milking over a hundred and ten pounds a day."

  I slipped into my rubber boots while Dick fidgeted and shuffled his feet. Plucking my stethoscope from the dash and a thermometer from the ashtray, I followed him into the milkhouse.

  "Have the calves been bothered with diarrhea?"

  "Not a bit. My hired hand, Alex, has been doing a great job with them; we haven't had a sick one for months."

  Dick turned into the calf barn, and I followed him down a row of neatly strawed pens.

  "This calf's been doing well, then?"

  "Yeah, up till this morning, I would've said she was the healthiest calf on the farm. Fed her myself last night, and she cleaned everything up and was looking for more. Don't know about this morning, but Alex watches the calves like a hawk, and he'd have mentioned something if she hadn't taken her milk."

  As we walked down the aisle in front of the calves, they bucked and played. Several stuck their heads out through the front slats and bawled in anticipation of another feeding.

  "She's looking worse by the minute!" Dick lamented, stopping in front of the second pen from the wall.

  The calf was lying on her tummy with her nose jammed firmly into her flank. Her hair coat was rough and standing on end. Her breathing was fast and laboured, each expiration ending in a pronounced grunt.

  "You haven't had a problem with bloat?" I asked, eyeing the fine green alfalfa hay that sat untouched on the rack at the front of the pen. "She certainly looks full."

  "No, we've been feeding them the same second-cut hay for months and haven't had a problem."

  I climbed over the pen wall and ran my hands over the heifer's body. She lay stoically, giving no indication that she even noticed my presence. I inserted the thermometer into her rectum. Her tailhead was dry and completely clean aside from a small amount of fecal material clinging to the surrounding hairs.

  "She doesn't seem to have a problem with diarrhea," I observed.

  I straightened her neck and examined her face. Her ears drooped pathetically, and her eyes had sunken deeply into her head, revealing the pink of the tissue that lined the socket and covered the globe.

  "Look at these eyes! This calf is severely dehydrated."

  Forcing her mouth open, I took a quick look inside, then let her have her head. She gave a deep-throated groan and made a feeble attempt to bawl.

  "Her mouth feels as cold as ice." I retrieved the thermometer. "Hm-m-m, 37.2, almost a degree and a half below normal."

  I grasped the hair on her sides and lifted her from the back corner to the centre of the stall. She made no effort to support herself, and when released, crumpled in a heap on the straw. Grunting with each breath, she turned around and jammed her head firmly back into her flank.

  "This calf's at death's door," I mumbled.

  "Wouldn't you know it!" Dick groaned. "She's out of my best cow and sired by the top bull in North America. I had a lot of hope for her."

  Taking the stethoscope from my back pocket, I listened to the rapid pounding of the heifer's heart.

  "Could a pneumonia bring her down this fast?"

  "It can occasionally, but I don't think the problem's in her chest. It looks to me like she has a blockage somewhere and the grunting's just a result of pain."

  Shifting my examination to the abdomen, I systematically moved the stethoscope, listened for sound, then thumped with my finger in search of a distended bowel. A hollow, high-pitched ringing answered my thumping.

  "There's a lot of gas under pressure here. I'd be willing to bet we have a torsion of some sort."

  With both hands and the stethoscope under the calf's belly, I lifted up and down rapidly, literally shaking her abdomen. Tremendous tinkling and slopping sounds emanated, like water sloshing around in a mostly empty container.

  "My God!" Dick exclaimed. "You don't need that thing; I can hear it from up here. So what's a torsion in farmer's language?"

  "The gut's supported by a structure called the mesentery with vessels that fan out to all the various parts of the bowel. Sometimes things twist to interfere with blood flow and the movement of stomach contents."

  "So what do we do with her? I don't want to lose her."

  "She's a long shot by the look of her, but if you want to try to save her, we better do surgery."

  "So what'll you need?"

  "We'll need to get her out of here. Have you got somewhere out of the flies where the light's better? How about the milkhouse?"

  "The light would be best over in the meat shop. I'll go get the tractor and the front-end loader. We can put her in the bucket to get her there."

  By the time we had the heifer unloaded at the meat shop, she was even more despondent. Her head hung limply as we slid her onto the cutting table. While Dick stood beside her, I clipped the hair over her jugular vein. The black and white hair peeled off to fall in clumps on the floor, leaving a pink and grey mosaic pattern on the soft, smooth skin beneath.

  "Just press your finger in here." I directed Dick's fingers to the crease at the base of the calf's neck.

  With a gauze soaked in alcohol, I rubbed vigorously towards his fingers. The vessel was there—not well-defined the way it would be on a healthy calf, but I could see it. Again and again, I stroked towa
rds his fingers, trying to build pressure behind the dam. Finally, I peeled a catheter open and plunged it into the ripple that I hoped was the vein. Nothing!

  "Just keep your fingers in place a bit longer. I think I've gone through it."

  I slowly eased the plastic portion of the catheter back until I was rewarded with a flow of dark, blue-red blood. I pushed forward to thread it up the vein and started the fluids running. I wrapped a piece of tape around the indwelling catheter and sutured it to the skin.

  The heifer lay quietly on her side, her breathing slow, regular, and punctuated with that same pronounced grunt. She made no response when I turned on the clippers and began stripping the hair from her abdomen and flank.

  "Are you going to put her to sleep to do this?"

  "She's in no shape for a general anesthetic. I'll give her a high epidural to paralyze her hind legs and use a regional block to keep her from feeling pain from the incision."

  I was ready to block her for surgery when I realized I didn't have my instruments. I had washed, packed, and put them through the pressure cooker after I got home the previous night. I remembered taking them out and setting them on the counter. After uttering a few choice words, I turned to Dick.

  "Wouldn't you know it, I have to go to West Creston to get my instruments."

  I slowed the IV and ran for my car. I had clear sailing to the Canyon bridge and was able to speed along quite nicely until I came upon Grandma Moses. Following the thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit, the elderly lady had three cars backed up behind her. I grumbled along behind the procession until I reached the Erickson back road. Taking the short cut, I was able to avoid most of the traffic and was soon tearing along the gravel road to the ferry.

  Fortune was smiling on me for the moment. I arrived at the top of the knoll above the Kootenay River, and there sat the ferry waiting for me. The operator waved me on board. He was a slight man with greying hair in his late fifties. He always seemed preoccupied with poking around the ferry, and I often felt he was doing me a big favour to give me a ride. He glumly nodded as I proceeded down the ramp and onto the deck. I heard the rattle of the chain against the metal flooring as he lifted it and locked it in place as a barrier at the back of the ferry. In less than a minute, the motor revved. The cable that lay submerged beneath the water tightened and reared as it propelled us along.

  I slumped back against the seat and watched the far bank of the river grow closer, the cable slicing through the water like a serpent after its prey. We landed on the opposite shore, and the operator idled the engine. He sauntered past me and lowered the forward chain. I nodded my thanks, drove over it and up the ramp.

  It didn't take long to get to the house, grab the instruments, and drive back to the ferry landing. I was patting myself on the back as I approached the top of the dike. This was going to work out just right; it was probably best for the calf to be at least partially rehydrated before I started surgery anyway.

  I just had to learn to take things as they come. After all, this was no more than a minor inconvenience and probably wouldn't be detrimental to my patient.

  "Well," I muttered, as I pulled to a stop, "it looks like my luck's run out."

  The ferry was parked on the other side this time.

  Determined to be patient, I leaned my head back. The ferry operator had surely seen me and would soon be on his way. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I relished the warmth of the sun beating through the window. It was a beautiful day, and there was no reason why I shouldn't enjoy this peaceful setting.

  I gazed down at the river and, for a few moments, forgot about the calf. What a beautiful country this—a massive river meandering through majestic mountains that would soon be sporting caps of snow. This time of year, the Kootenay was the picture of serenity. The greens and yellows of late summer lined her quiet, calm waters. From this vantage point, it was difficult to see that she had any current whatsoever.

  Gradually my mind wandered back to the business at hand. I hadn't seen many animals with twisted guts during my time at the veterinary college. There had been two that I could remember, and neither of them had survived. Time was of the essence with this type of bowel blockage and had played a role in both of those cases. One died because an indecisive farmer had waited too long to bring the calf in and the other because a dithering clinician couldn't convince himself to start cutting. I wasn't anxious to see my patient die because I didn't get things corrected soon enough.

  What could be taking so long? I suddenly found myself very much focused on the passage of time. A few minutes can feel like hours when you're anxious to get going, but this was ridiculous.

  I got out of the car and peered across the river at the motionless vessel. Why hadn't it fired up? Was that the operator at the back?

  There he was lying on the hood of the engine behind the cabin. Surely he couldn't be asleep. I strained my ears to hear if the ferry's engine was running. The only sound I could detect was the distant rumble of a tractor working in the field on the Rogers' farm.

  "Hey!" I bellowed. "Over here!"

  Not a hint of movement from across the water—there had to be something wrong. Maybe he was seriously injured! I had myself talked into going to the Rogers to phone across when I saw him move. His hand casually meandered from his side to his face. There it was again. He moved his arm again.

  "Damn," I fumed. "He's lying in the sun eating his bloody lunch!"

  I leaned on the horn. The pathetic bleat that came forth from under the hood aggravated me at the best of times, but today it enraged me. What in the world were those Germans thinking when they put a horn like that into a vehicle?

  Running to the landing, I jumped up and down, waving and hollering at the top of my lungs. I took a deep breath, paused, and stared across the water. There it was again—the rhythmic movement of his right arm.

  "Hell, I've got a calf dying, and he's stretched out in the sun stuffing his face!"

  The next ten minutes were a blur. I must have seemed an absolute idiot, running up and down the embankment of the ramp, hollering, cursing, waving my arms. Not once did the ferry operator indicate that he knew such a performance was going on within earshot on the other side of the river. Not once did he signal that he would stir from his perch in the sun.

  In desperation, I headed back the way I'd come. The bypass at the north end of the valley that would eventually lead to the decommissioning of the ferry was almost complete, and I thought I might be able to get through. Driving north, I followed the edge of the mountain, arriving at the construction site as they stopped for lunch. Huge mounds of blasted rock were stacked along the mountain face, and truckloads of earth were being packed on top of them. Maneuvering between piles of gravel and idle machines, I waved at the workers and passed through as if the road were open for travel.

  I arrived back in Canyon still fuming about my ordeal. Dick's wife, Marie, was seated on a chair next to the calf. A good-looking blonde with a slight build, she hardly suited the role of a farmer.

  "How're we making out?" I asked, stumbling through the door.

  "I don't know; she doesn't exactly look like she wants to live yet."

  The poor little critter was struggling to drag in another breath against the pressure of an ever expanding abdomen. I quickly inspected the drip chamber to make certain that the fluids were still flowing, then filled a syringe with Lidocaine and stuffed it in my coveralls pocket.

  The calf lay stoically as I clipped and scrubbed her. She didn't even react to the injections of anesthetic.

  "By the look of all those needles," shuddered Marie, "you must be getting ready to open her up. I'm going to run over to the barn and get Dick. I don't think he knows you're back yet, and I'd rather have him here when you start cutting."

  I finished the final scrub on the calf and laid out my materials.

  Dick rushed through the door. "So we're ready to start?" The look on his face told me he had a dozen other things he'd rather be doing. "Do
you think we'll have this all wrapped up in a couple hours? If not, I better call Alex for help."

  "No problem. If you'll just give me some of this soap, I'll get on with my scrub." I handed him the bottle of Bridine and extended my hands.

  I had finished lathering a second time and was offering my hands for the final scrub, when Dick spoke out. "Boy, I can sure see what the guys have been saying about you; you spend more time washing than you do cutting."

  "I'm glad to hear that! I'd rather be spending my time washing than doing postmortems and lancing abscesses. Better to have farmers talking about my washing habits than the critters that died from the lack of it."

  "Yeah, guess you're right. Don't get me wrong. Wash as much as you like."

  Gowned and gloved, I clamped a disposable drape to the heifer and exposed a line of pink flesh down her side. I sliced through the muscle layer beneath. As I approached the last, semi-transparent layer called the peritoneum, I picked it up with forceps and made a stab incision with the scalpel. Then with scissors, I extended it generously in both directions. Coils of gas-distended bowel boiled up through the incision.

  "Boy, I can see why you didn't just whack through that with the scalpel!"

  Retracting the bowels as much as possible, I slid my gloved hand forward and towards the bottom of her spine. The heifer moaned in anguish and started breathing rapidly, her expiratory grunt more pronounced than ever.

  "That's where it hurts, isn't it, girl?" I slipped my hand down to the root of the mesentery. I could feel a hard band of tissue and the pulsating vessels. "See how this part of the bowel is all dark and full of gas? You can see that pale area way down there where it's twisted off; some blood can get out here, but none can go back."

  Dick was engrossed and moved around to get a better view. Marie seemed content to view the procedure from where she stood.

  Choosing an area with maximum distention, I drove a needle through the gut wall, and gas hissed from the end of it.

  "Man, that stinks," Dick protested. "That's absolutely rank!"