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

by Perrin, Dr. Dave

  "You have to!" Doris interjected. "What about the pony?"

  "What about me? I can't work with a bunch of idiots running everywhere. I'm supposed to go out there and anesthetize a horse for the first time in front of all those people." I was on the verge of tears.

  The comment about anesthetizing my first horse unnerved both my companions, and I noticed them exchange a worried glance.

  Before I could give further consideration to running, Mr. Lennard appeared in his driveway madly waving his left arm.

  "Make way! Make way! The vet's here!"

  Taking a deep breath, I drove up the narrow path he had cleared through the vehicles and bystanders until we stopped next to the pony. Freckles stood on his good leg, his head and neck cuddled by a swarm of children.

  I did my best to shoot an accusing eye at Mr. Lennard. I felt like wringing the old fool's neck. What right had he to turn this surgery into a circus sideshow? The last thing I needed was a big audience.

  My glare was totally lost on Mr. Lennard. He had prepared a show for all of Yahk, and he wasn't about to fade from the spotlight for even a moment.

  "What can we get for ya, Doc?" he asked. "Where do ya want to do him?"

  Where did I want to do him? Probably about where any other rookie veterinarian would want to anesthetize his first horse—miles from all these rocks and people and old car bodies. How about the veterinary college on their padded recovery room floor, with Larry Kramer sitting at my elbow?

  "Is there an area somewhere around the house that's free of rocks?" I finally asked him.

  "Not really."

  "Well, let's clear one then." I stooped to pick up the end of an old car bumper.

  A half hour passed with Mr. Lennard diligently supervising the cleanup of his front yard. When we had most of the boulders plucked from a twenty-by-twenty-foot area around the horse, I could stall no longer.

  "Bring Freckles ahead a couple more steps while I get the anesthetic."

  The kids scattered as I approached, their eyes focused on the huge syringe I cradled in my hand. "Okay, guys, you back up now; it's time for Freckles to go to sleep. Gordon, could you hold the horse's head while I give the anesthetic?"

  My friend looked aghast as he realized his role was changing from spectator to participant and exchanged a nervous smile with Doris. He stepped up to grasp the halter shank.

  "Hold him tight and support his weight until the last moment." I adjusted Gordon's hand on the halter, then stroked the jugular vein with an alcohol swab. "Remember that when he goes down, we want the bad side up."

  Taking a deep breath, I thrust the needle into the vein, drew back the plunger until a jet of blood shot into the clear solution, then delivered the contents in one rapid, smooth injection.

  Freckles stood with a bewildered look for a few seconds, then leaned back on the rope and sank to the ground. As he went down, a clamour rose from the crowd that by now completely encircled us.

  "Boy, did you see that?"

  "Is he ever good. Look at the way he put that horse to sleep!"

  Freckles had gone down in a perfect position. His bad leg was uppermost, as was the needle, which sent a steady trickle of blood down his neck and onto the ground. He had been down for almost a minute and still hadn't taken a breath! I watched the steady rhythmic vibration of his thorax that was a testament to the beating of his heart and willed him to take a breath.

  "Come on, you son of a b... breathe!" I muttered to myself. "Ahh, there he goes!"

  The inspiration was deep—long, deliberate, almost dramatic. Feeling more confident now, I ran the air out of the intravenous tube and connected the glycerol guacoate solution to the needle that still protruded from the jugular vein.

  The second, third, and fourth breaths followed the first with regularity. Allowing the muscle relaxant to flow at a steady rate, I passed the bottle to Gordon.

  "Run about half in at this speed, Gord, then stop it. I'll let you know when we need some more."

  I ran two loops of a one-inch cotton rope around the horse's upper thigh and tied the end to a nearby cottonwood tree. With a second rope, I placed a half hitch above and below the fetlock joint.

  In need of another anchor point, I yelled into the crowd, "Who owns the blue four-wheel-drive pickup?"

  A heavyset fellow on the edge of the crowd replied, "I do."

  "Could you back it over here to give us something to pull against?" I continued stretching the rope out and hooked it to one end of the chain block.

  With directions from the crowd, the driver maneuvered among the boulders until he had backed within about eight feet of the pony's leg.

  "That should be fine!" I shouted, connecting the other hook of the chain block to the clevis on the truck hitch.

  Hopping from the vehicle, the fellow grabbed the apparatus and let it be known that he was ready to go.

  "Just snug it up," I directed, as he started the chains rattling. To Gordon I said, "Give him about half of what's left; he doesn't want to be feeling this."

  The circle of spectators got closer and closer. My newly recruited assistant had a look of determination, and his hand lay poised on the chain awaiting my instruction.

  "Okay, put more tension on."

  As the pressure on the end of the leg was increased, the pony slid over the dirt towards the pickup until the rope in his groin held him firm.

  "Hold it for a bit!" The leg was now as tight as a fiddle string, suspending the pony between the cottonwood tree and the pickup truck. To my amazement, the overlap of the tibial tarsal bone and the central tarsal bone was still almost three inches.

  "Some more."

  The tension on the leg was tremendous and the skin adjacent to the half hitches was taut and blanched. It was hard to believe that the contraction of the leg muscles could hold out against such force. Bracing my feet, I pulled backwards on the hock, trying to replace its natural curvature.

  "Some more yet." I held my breath and strained against the hock. I could feel beads of sweat trickling down the back of my neck.

  "Almost, almost." The joint edges were almost in apposition. "A little more."

  He increased the tension again, but it suddenly slackened as the truck slid forward.

  "I'm out of purchase!" Sure enough, he had pulled the hook right up to the block itself.

  "Okay, we better release it and try again. Can you drive the truck ahead a bit and park it more on an angle?"

  He maneuvered his truck back and forth in the tight confines. If the vehicle were to slide now, it would have to be pulled almost sideways over the rock-strewn ground.

  Stretching the leg again, we paused for four or five minutes with a constant pressure as I strained to put a curvature in the hock.

  "Again." I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of one hand while continuing to pull with the other. With the chain rattling and the body part stretching, the scene had a flavour of medieval torture. At this point, it wouldn't have surprised me if the leg had pulled in two.

  "Again!"

  This time when I heaved, the leg gave way with a resounding clunk and slid into place.

  "Wow, look at that!" came a voice from the crowd. "I didn't think they were ever gonna get it."

  "Neither did I," I muttered under my breath.

  I felt my way around the outside of the joint. "Try releasing the pressure."

  As the operator slackened the pressure on the chain block, I untied the leg and carefully flexed the hock.

  "I'll be damned." The limb flexed freely—no crunching, no grinding. It even felt fairly stable. "Better give him the rest of the bottle, Gordon!" I pointed to the pony's head. "His eye's twitching. We aren't going to have much time left for the anesthetic."

  As Gordon ran the rest of the muscle relaxer in, I brought casting material from the car and asked Mrs. Lennard for some warm water.

  I measured enough stockinet to reach well above the hock. Sliding it over the pony's hoof, I pulled it tight and began making
passes over top of it with cast padding. I reminded myself not to overdo it, as I remembered the first one we had applied in medical exercises back at college. Too much cotton had allowed our dog to literally step out of his cast before he had gone a dozen strides.

  "Doris!" I was applying my last turn of cast padding. "See what Mrs. Lennard is doing about the water. She must have gotten lost!"

  As Doris went searching, the pony made his first attempt to move. It wasn't much to worry about, merely a twitch of the front leg, but it was a warning that I was running out of time. Just as I was thinking of going in search of Doris, she appeared with my stainless steel bucket filled to the brim.

  "Sorry it took so long. They don't have running water here, and Mrs. Lennard had to go to the neighbour's house to get it."

  I plunged a roll of Velrock into the warm water, squeezed it several times to drain off the excess, and began applying the cast in a roundabout fashion.

  The box of casting material was half gone before I realized I was in trouble. There wasn't enough here to put an acceptable cast on a large dog, never mind a horse!

  "Doris! Could you head into town and see if you can bum some casting material from the hospital? I'll need at least another full box to finish this properly."

  "I'll run you in," said the man with the blue truck. They jumped into the vehicle, and Gordon cleared a path through the crowd.

  "What's the holdup? What's the holdup?" An abrasive red-haired man ventured from the crowd to see what was delaying the show. I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore him. It was only after another "What's the holdup?" that I replied tersely, "I've run out of casting material!"

  "I've got lots of plaster of Paris at home."

  "This isn't just plaster of Paris! It's special casting material—I'm sure you wouldn't have any at home."

  "Do so!" He headed off in the direction of the highway.

  The casting material had already hardened to a thin but flexible shell by the time he returned.

  "There you go. Same as yours!" He dropped a box at my feet. "Got another one at the house if you need it."

  Sure enough, Velroc green—extra fast-setting. Exactly the same as the one I had just used. Almost as if to look at the box of casting material, the pony raised his head and tried to sit.

  "Easy, fellow, we're not quite finished with you yet." Hopping over the pony's body, I grabbed his halter, knelt on his neck, and held his head at right angles to the ground.

  "Can you hold him like this, Gordon? I'm going to need at least fifteen minutes more before we can let him up." Gordon grabbed the halter and planted himself on Freckles's neck, anchoring him firmly to the ground.

  "Just lean back a little more, Gord, in case he tries to strike with his front foot. If he struggles, just pull his head up towards you and lean back a little harder."

  The pony behaved himself as if he knew what was good for him; the cast was applied and nicely hardening by the time he started moving again. This time, rather than holding him down, I folded his front legs under his body and propped him in a sitting position.

  "What in the world are you doing with all that casting material, Steve?" Gordon asked the fellow who had miraculously produced the box of Velroc.

  "Keep lots of stuff on hand," he replied matter-of-factly. "Broke my foot a couple of years ago when my medical run out. Cost me a fortune! What a rip-off for a cast. If I ever break anything again, I'll just fix it myself."

  By the time Doris arrived on the scene with the extra casting material, the Lennards' yard had taken on the air of a carnival ground. A horseshoe pitch was well underway; tables were set up laden with cakes, cookies, and squares.

  "You mean, I risked my life driving with this maniac, and you don't even need it!" Doris wailed. She looked as if she had endured a harrowing experience. Her normally well-groomed hair was windblown and hanging over her forehead; her face was drained of colour. Her hands hung loosely at the side of her body, and in each she clutched a box of Velroc.

  "Sorry, Doris, but look at him." I walked her to the side of the house where Freckles stood nibbling on bits of grass that the Lennard children had gathered. "He looks like he's going to make it."

  "If you only knew!" She plunked the boxes down on the top of the car. "You have no idea what it was like."

  A few minutes out of the blue truck did wonders for Doris's complexion. By the time the equipment was cleaned up, she was bubbling away about the trip.

  "You've never in your life seen anyone drive like him—we passed every car in sight. I bet you can still find my handprints embedded in his dash."

  "Let's get something to eat; I'm starved."

  Mrs. Lennard offered us a piece of cake. It was a chocolate cake coated with a thick, fluffy layer of white icing, and my mouth watered at the sight of it.

  "Just finished icin' it," she said with a smile. "Do you think he's gonna be all right, Dr. Perrin?"

  "I sure hope so, Mrs. Lennard." I took a bite of the cake and continued with my mouth half full. "But only time will tell."

  "Let me give you and the girls a hand," said Doris. She followed Mrs. Lennard into the kitchen.

  Gordon and I had finished a sandwich and were just attacking another piece of Mrs. Lennard's cake when Doris came charging back from the kitchen. Her face was once more ashen, and she had lost her composure again.

  "Don't eat it," she said to Gordon, who had the cake halfway into his mouth. "You wouldn't believe the kitchen! You've got to see it; I've never in my entire life seen anything like it." She gagged, suppressing the urge to retch. Clutching Gordon by the arm, she dragged him into the kitchen.

  Mrs. Lennard's exit with a plateful of cookies gave us the opportunity to examine the source of Doris's distress. A quick peek said it all. The makeshift counter that held the remaining food at one end was piled with dirty dishes at the other. The table and countertops were buried in layer upon layer of filth. At the corner of the counter, the very tip of a spoon was visible, protruding through years of accumulated grime.

  "An archeologist's delight," I muttered.

  "Yeah," Gordon responded. "You could excavate layer by layer to see what they had for supper each year at this time."

  Still holding our cake in hand, Gordon and I followed Doris outside.

  "I think I'm going to be sick," she said, rushing around the corner.

  "What the hell," I declared, holding the cake up as a toast to Gordon.

  "Here's looking at you." He devoured his piece whole.

  "Good cake," I responded. "Real good cake!"

  A few nights of wallpapering and painting did wonders for the dreary little rooms that had become the clinic. I argued with Doris over the wallpaper—a black velvet pattern on off-white—but she insisted. Now that it was up, I had to admit that we probably couldn't have found a more appropriate camouflage. Gordon and Ruth showed up one evening as Doris and I were wallpapering in the gloom and, by the next afternoon, Gordon had installed four new fluorescent fixtures. For a realtor, he was a man of many talents.

  He also introduced me to the manager of the other bank in town and, within a few minutes, I had financing approved for the equipment that had already started to arrive. The telephone hookup proceeded more quickly in town than in West Creston, and the phone was beginning to monopolize Doris's time. We had postponed booking elective surgeries until the anesthetic machine and surgery table arrived, but now that they were here, the day book began to fill with neuters and cat spays.

  I never mentioned anything to Doris, but I was surprised and relieved to see no dog spays booked within the first few weeks. Because a spay is such a frequently performed surgery, most people have the misconception that it is easy to carry out—that something is simply snipped. To the contrary, the surgery is far more complicated than many other procedures that are considered major. Only because most veterinarians do large numbers of them do they seem routine.

  I had spayed a cat at veterinary college, but had been relegated to the role of
anesthetist for the ovariohysterectomy on the dog. While my partner waded around in our surgery dog's abdomen in search of her uterus, I watched the bag of the anesthetic machine expand and contract. My first spay here would be another of those giant steps into virgin territory!

  During those first few days, Doris and I had been too preoccupied to pay much attention to what was going on next door. As time went by, however, we began to notice some strange things. Although there was a continual flow of traffic through Anthony's doors, it was rare to actually walk by and see him cutting hair.

  "What on earth is that odour?" Doris asked, when I returned one afternoon from a farm call. "I've been smelling it all day. I made a trip to the bathroom about an hour ago, and it was so strong out there that I almost gagged!"

  "We really are from a different generation, aren't we, Doris? Someone must be toking up next door."

  "What do you mean?"

  "That's the smell of weed, whacky tobaccy, marijuana!"

  "Noooo!"

  "I hope you haven't had any clients in here in the last few minutes; they'll think you were smoking weed in the back between customers."

  "I haven't had anyone in lately," she worried, "but what if people actually think we're smoking that stuff? Are you sure?"

  Within a few moments, she was wandering around the office with a can of Lysol, spraying for all she was worth.

  Doris and I looked up and stared at one another.

  "What's that ungodly noise?" I asked.

  We had prepared a cat for a neuter. I had just showed Doris how to pluck the hair from his testicles and was finishing the last scrub of the surgery site, when the wailing began. At first, it was hard to determine what the noise was, but eventually we agreed—it had to be an accordion!

  "I can't believe this." I laid the gloves out on the table. "Anthony's learning to play the accordion."

  I finished the neuter and was waiting for the cat to wake up. The squawking and squealing that came through the wall was really beginning to annoy me. There didn't seem to be much pattern to the sounds.