William's Gift

by Helen Douglas

  His parents had come to see him off and to spend the weekend before his departure with him. I went by the house with the excuse of dropping off a few of my belongings, but I was really hoping to meet the Farrells. When I knocked and went in, his mother looked up expectantly at me and smiled, saying, “Are you Jackie?” It didn’t take me long to find out that Larry had a steady girlfriend and that she was leaving with him in two days for the six months of travelling and working overseas.

  Our last conversation was certainly one of our most animated. I was hurt and angry, because I had been made to feel so special. Yet I had no right to the latter emotion because I had been duly warned. It was just as well that he was leaving in two days, because the long break would give me a chance to cool down in more ways than one. It was for the best, as I escaped a fate of being just one more on a list of broken hearts, and we were to become very good friends when he returned.

  Anne was engaged to be married that fall. When I told her that I would be leaving the farm, it was decided that Richard would move in immediately upon my departure. It wasn’t entirely to our parents’ liking, but they accepted it fairly well, as the wedding date was in sight. Richard had been Anne’s high school sweetheart and we all knew him well. He spent most of his time at the farm anyway and had helped us tremendously with the outside work. He had managed over the years to get used to our relentlessly horse-filled lifestyle — or should I say had resigned himself to it. He knew that a life with Anne would mean a life with animals close by. I was glad that my leaving didn’t create any problems for her and I could see that the two of them were happy to set about running the farm without me.

  For the first few weekends, I returned to help them get ready for a horse show that Anne was going to run on the holiday weekend in May. There was a lot of preparation to do in order to make the jumps safe. We built some new ones as well, and by the time the day arrived, we were really proud of the grounds. The work we had done had almost restored the farm to its former loveliness, and everyone admired the facelift, glad to see the old place saved from ruin.

  The morning of the show it was raining heavily. The forecast called for clearing skies, though, and Anne stubbornly refused to cancel. The canteen truck arrived and the loudspeakers were set up, but the writing on the signs was already starting to blur before we had even started. The horse trailers were making deep ruts in the field where they were parking, and we could see that before long someone would get stuck. It was terribly disappointing after all the hard work we had done. Everyone who runs a horse show dreads having such weather, as it can make the competition dangerous, as well as ruin the footing for a long time. It was all the more important for us, because it was our first show and its success would ensure the return of exhibitors to the next.

  We delayed getting started for as long as we could, but the competitors who had braved the day were soaked through, cold, and wanted to get going. Miraculously, just before lunch break the sky cleared, and by early afternoon there was some warmth in the sun. More people had arrived, some of who had shown there years before and had waited at home for the rain to stop so they could come and ride over the same fences again. The footing was a little slippery and deep in front of the jumps, but there weren’t any accidents. Many of the trailers had to be pulled out by the neighbour’s tractor. But in the end, it was a great day, somewhat steeped in nostalgia. People made the best of the situation, helping each other out by sharing dry clothing and steaming mugs of coffee. We were all glad to be out again, enjoying our horses after the long winter. It was the first of many shows Anne held there and they became well known for being fun and friendly.

  Working at Brentwood Veterinary Clinic was as different from working for Dr. McKay as I had expected it to be on the first day. For one thing, the clients themselves were very different. Country people are generally less emotionally involved with their animals than city people are. Perhaps that is because they often have more of them, or because they are more realistic about life and death. They are also more familiar with natural phenomena, with health and illness and the difference between them. So the emergencies we had were usually true emergencies. It was difficult to get used to seeing the offspring of the farm animals, as cute as any puppy or kitten, being treated as economic units. In many cases, the owners just couldn’t afford to pay for medical care for them. So I had to relearn my approach to both my new clients and their animals.

  I also had to start at the bottom again in a professional sense, as I was a greenhorn when it came to cattle work. After the struggle I’d had with my self-confidence the previous spring, it was disheartening to experience that “new graduate” feeling again every time I arrived at a farm.

  The first milk fever I treated really gave me cause for alarm. Milk fever is a fairly straightforward emergency to deal with if there are no complications. In dairy cattle, calving results in a great rush of calcium from the bloodstream to the milk forming in the udder. As a result, the blood level of calcium can fall dangerously low. Because this mineral is essential for muscular contractions, the affected cows cannot stand, eructate, or eliminate. In the early stages, they appear uncoordinated but still bright. Eventually, they become totally “flat” and can die. I had seen Jim administer the usual dose of two bottles of a calcium-glucose solution into a cow’s vein recently, and within moments she had responded by getting to her feet. I felt sure it was a situation I could handle.

  When I got my first call to a downer cow, I almost looked forward to treating her. With clean coveralls on and my two bottles of calcium in hand, I headed out to the farm. It was one of our better-run farms, and the farmer prided himself on his purebred cattle. I examined the cow for other complicating conditions such as mastitis and couldn’t detect any.

  “ This is one of my best cows,” he said proudly.

  I had the farmer tie her head so I could find her jugular vein, and started running in the first bottle of solution at the speed I had seen Jim use. I had just started giving her the second bottle when suddenly she threw her head back, stiffened horribly and collapsed sideways to lie wedged, spine down, in the gutter. Both the farmer and I were momentarily speechless. My heart was hammering.

  “I think her heart has gone into palpitations,” I said when I had sufficiently recovered. “Go out to the field and get a couple of your boys to help us get her back up.”

  As he ran out to his truck to go for help, I frantically looked for the barn telephone. Thankfully it was easy to find on the bright, newly whitewashed wall. I got Jim on the phone and he reassured me as best he could, “Well, she’ll either live or die. Probably live. Nothing you can do but wait and hope for the best.”

  I returned to the site of the disaster wondering yet again whether I was cut out to be a vet. The cow blinked at me and tried weakly to right herself. By the time the farmer had returned with his sons and rolled her, she had recovered sufficiently to hold herself in an upright position. I tried to act as if collapse was a common occurrence when administering calcium and said offhandedly, “She’ll be up and around soon,” as I departed.

  As I drove out the lane I felt scared and a bit discouraged at the prospect of starting all over again. Obviously, more pitfalls loomed in front of me, and my hard-won confidence felt quite fragile. Another steep learning curve! Could the clients withstand it, much less myself? This time, however, it didn’t take me so long to get into the swing of things. Within a few weeks, I was feeling completely at home in my coveralls and finding Lanark County just as fascinating as I had found Lunenburg County.

  FIVE

  “They’ll let anybody be

  a vet these days …”

  IT WAS THE BACK ROADS of Lanark that really won me over. Each new call led me to discover another winding, up-and-down road that delighted me. Even after driving them dozens of times, I never took them for granted. I would often find myself wishing I could show it all to someone or share the vi
sual banquet I experienced while finding my way around. The early mornings when the mist was still lying on the low ground and the spring evenings when the setting sun cast long shadows over the green and gold world were particularly beautiful. But the most special time for me was after a snowfall. The roads in the wilder regions of Lanark were narrow and twisty, with miles of split rail fences snaking through the rocks and trees that bordered them. When there were six inches of fresh snow sitting on the fences and weighing down the tree branches, I felt as if I were driving from one picture postcard to another.

  I discovered that there were two distinct types of landscape and that this had resulted in the evolution of two entirely different lifestyles. One part of the county was flat and its rich soil supported prosperous corn and dairy farming operations. I had to learn where each farm was located on the well-laid-out concession roads. The other part of Lanark was hilly and rock covered, with so little topsoil that most of it had never been cropped. Here and there, small clearings were used for grazing sheep and beef cattle, but the people had to supplement their incomes by driving buses or selling wood. It was this part of the countryside that fascinated me.

  The use of square cedar logs in the building of homes and barns is part of the heritage of the Ottawa Valley. Most of these dwellings were built in the mid-nineteenth century and many still remain in good condition. Smaller cedar trees were used for the endless miles of fencing, along with tree stumps and the omnipresent rocks. The style of house that was built was quite consistent, a simple one-and-a-half-storey building with a central peaked dormer above the front door being the most common. The logs were dovetailed by hand at the corners so they fit as neatly as those of a fine cabinet. The spaces between the logs were filled with rocks and wood before being plastered with a lime mixture. The effect is lovely, and nowhere else in Canada can so many of these historic buildings be found.

  It shocked me to find out that there were still hillbillies living in the woods within our practice area. They lived in everything from rundown log shanties to old buses. Many of them owned heavy draft horses that they used to pull logs out of the bush in the winter. Although these people seemed rough and old-fashioned, they were hardworking and so unaffected that, once they had accepted me, they were a joy to know. It took a little while, but accept me they finally did.

  When I got my first call to draw blood for mandatory lab testing from four heavy horses belonging to such a woodsman, I was eager to get there and introduce myself. I admired the draft horses with their wonderful combination of strength and gentleness. I wanted these people to get to know me and use me to look after their horses. It hadn’t occurred to me that even here, far from Nova Scotia, this man and most of the others would never have met a lady veterinarian.

  When I pulled up to the small house, no one came out to greet me. There were doghouses everywhere, with lean hounds on short chains regarding me skeptically. I wandered over to the group of ramshackle barns through the spring mud.

  A voice from nowhere said dryly, “I see they’ll let anybody be a vet these days.”

  I stopped in my tracks, surprised and a little hurt. A tall, thin man in dirty work clothes surveyed me from where he leaned on the fence. Much as I longed to make a witty retort, none came into my head, and the moment was lost. I didn’t know whether to continue or turn back. But he gestured and moved towards the barn, so I followed him into the dark interior.

  Four magnificent Belgians stood tied in standing stalls, their coats gleaming. I found out later they were his pride and joy and he often won pulling contests with them at the local fairs. It seemed wisest to ignore the fact that he might not want me there. I tried to act relaxed and sure of myself as I took the blood from the horses in turn. I asked him about their ages and show careers, thankful that I knew how to “talk horse.” When I had finished with the last tube and packed up my kit he said, “You’re not afraid of them, are you?”

  “No,” I replied

  “Well, I guess you’re all right, then.” I took it as the approval I had been hoping for.

  I worked many times for this man over the next few years. He had two brothers, each of whom kept horses with him intermittently, and so they appeared at some of my visits. They were completely different from him and from one another. Bill was overweight and jovial and perpetually out of work, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Howard was excitable and a little simple-minded. He talked constantly at high volume and was almost uncontrollable in an emergency. They all lived at the farm on and off with their mother. I knew I had truly been accepted when I was asked inside for tea. I enjoyed that tea, sitting around a table piled high with dirty dishes, the floor covered with cages of young chickens, as much as if I’d been having it with royalty.

  As the months went by, I realized how lucky I had been to find the clinic. Jim was a fair and generous boss and always encouraged me through the rough spots in my cattle work. I knew he was always there to back me up. I had managed two simple calvings one night, when I came up against a problem I hadn’t previously encountered. I was already exhausted when the third call came in.

  It was raining, and an exceptionally thick fog made driving difficult. The call to a third cow having difficulty calving came in just after midnight, so I had the additional problem of finding my way to a new farm with visibility nil. To top it all off, the farm was an hour’s drive away in normal driving conditions — on the very edge of our practice area.

  I loaded up the car with all the equipment I anticipated needing. My eyes were tired and I felt tense when I finally found the place. The small Hereford heifer should never have been bred. She was far too young and small to have a calf. She lay in a box stall that hadn’t been cleaned out for some time, but I convinced the farmer to throw a bale down behind her so I could examine her without kneeling in the muck. It was readily apparent that the calf was dead. Its swollen head and protruding tongue looked macabre, and I knew it wasn’t going to be a good night. She was straining hard, and I had to administer a spinal anaesthetic to continue my investigation of the problem. I could only repel the calf a little way back into the vagina, but it was enough to ascertain that the front legs had both been retained. They were firmly lodged, far from reach.

  I struggled for a long time trying to push the calf back farther and grasp an elbow or a forearm. But the now halfhearted straining continued to work against me, and my arms were bruised and exhausted. I was frustrated and knew I wasn’t accomplishing anything. Reluctantly, I had to telephone Jim for help. The farmer was good-natured about it and tried to make me feel better by preparing a sandwich and coffee for me as we waited for Jim to make the difficult drive.

  When Jim arrived, he didn’t waste much time manipulating the calf. Within moments, he had frozen the cow’s side with local anaesthetic and started clipping and scrubbing it for surgery. I tried to prepare the area around the cow with more straw so we would have a more suitable place to work and lay out the instruments. All of a sudden everything seemed all right, almost cozy, in the old barn, as the other cows chewed their hay contentedly around us, and the rain fell outside. Jim’s presence and experience had salvaged the situation, and we felt confident that the cow would have a fighting chance after all. Within ten minutes, the fetus was lying on the ground. I held the uterus so it could be sewn up quickly. Half an hour later, he was finishing the last skin suture.

  We walked out to our separate vehicles in silence. I started to apologize for having had to call him out on such a night. But Jim gave my shoulder a squeeze and said, “It’s okay. That was a tough one. You’ll be able to do the next one on your own.” His kindness made me all the more determined to pull my own weight.

  Not long afterwards, I had the opportunity to do my first solo Caesarean section on a cow. I had mentally prepared myself for the time when I would have to do one, going over the preparations and procedure in my head. Luckily, this time another vet had done the ex
hausting work of trying to manipulate the calf and had called us to do the section. A friend of mine who had been an operating room nurse had begged me to call her if I ever needed a hand with surgery in the country, so I picked her up on the way to the call. We walked in with crisp coveralls and headscarves, feeling efficient and in control.

  This time, the barn was clean and brightly lit. The entire procedure went off without a hitch, and explaining it all to my assistant made it almost fun. My friend couldn’t believe how much blood was lost during the initial entry into the abdomen or that I wasn’t concerned about it. Her attempts to keep the surgical equipment sterile and organized were futile. The shoulder-length plastic gloves that I handed out to all my helpers were a source of great amusement. The calf was alive and well. I passed it up and over my shoulders to waiting arms. It blinked its eyes as if astonished to have been brought into the world by this unnatural route.

  Although physically tiring, it was a rewarding moment for me and, as always, I felt overwhelmed by the joy of new life. It is consistently and indescribably moving. It never grows old or stale to be the expeditor of a miracle.

  In late fall, Larry wrote to say that he’d like to extend his trip until after Christmas. Once away, he was finding it hard to contemplate settling down again. And returning in the dead of the Canadian winter from a warm climate wasn’t making the thought any easier for him. Jim and I had a long talk about the future, and I was pleased and flattered when he asked me to stay on. Certainly there would be problems to iron out — I knew already I wouldn’t want to do cattle work forever — but for the time being I considered my new job and my new lifestyle to be more satisfying than I had ever expected.