Into the midst of this busy scene Dave now arrived. The shock, disbelief and confusion on his face when he realized that we had already anaesthetized Marty was a picture.
‘How did you do it?’ he enquired.
‘I made an injection pole and used that,’ I said casually, not wanting to go into too much detail, aware of the disapproval that it would be greeted with. Fortunately, Dave was quickly distracted by the job in hand, assisting me to intubate and catheterize Marty.
‘Dave,’ I said. ‘Are you happy for a moment? I just need to ring the capture specialist in Somerset and tell him we don’t need him. I had him on standby just in case.’
‘Oh, that was good thinking. Yeah sure, go call him, I’ll take over here.’
‘Thanks.’
And with that I headed out of the building to call Eric.
I walked back down the corridor to the cage doorway. Dave looked up at me, giving me a knowing, disbelieving look. Clearly James or Chris hadn’t felt the same reluctance about sharing our unconventional, high-risk injection strategy as I had. Obviously he’d be having words with me later, but for now we were focused on the patient before us. I handed Dave the urinary catheter. It took several attempts and a few patient minutes, but suddenly it advanced and with it a stream of dark, foul-smelling urine flowed forth.
‘Good job,’ I said to Dave.
‘Yeah, he was definitely blocked and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a bladder full of stones, but there’s no way of telling without X-raying him, so I reckon now that we have him anaesthetized and stable, we open him up and flush out his bladder. What do you think, James?’
‘Whatever you think is best.’
‘Jon?’ Dave said turning to me.
‘Yeah, I agree. He seems stable and we’d be kicking ourselves if he reblocks in a day or two.’
‘OK, are you happy to do the anaesthetic if I do the surgery?’ Dave asked me.
‘Yeah, no problem.’
‘Perfect.’ Dave picked up the clippers and started clipping the hair away from Marty’s belly where he would make the incision.
‘Anything we can do?’ James asked.
‘Could you grab a jug of warm water?’ I suggested.
‘Sure,’ James replied and disappeared.
I turned my attention to checking Marty. He was breathing steadily, heart rate was 80 and he had no blink reflect; he was nicely asleep and stable.
James returned a few minutes later with the jug, Dave had finished clipping, so having added some iodine solution to the water, I started scrubbing the now exposed skin to clean it and prep it for surgery. Once finished I sprayed it with spirit while Dave used an antiseptic gel to sterilize his hands. I then opened the surgical kits so he could gown and glove up. With Marty draped, and Dave’s instruments laid out next to him, I provided him with a scalpel blade and suture material and he was ready to go. I did a final check to make sure Marty was fully under and then Dave proceeded.
It turned out that Marty had a bladder full of a gelatinous material, rather than the classic stones we were expecting, but nevertheless the find confirmed the need for the surgery. Having removed them and flushed through his bladder, Dave closed his bladder and then his abdomen and finally his skin, using buried stitches so they wouldn’t need removing.
‘Well that went pretty well,’ Dave confirmed as he removed his gloves and packed away his surgical instruments.
‘Thanks, guys, it was definitely the right call,’ Chris said.
We cleared all the equipment out of the cage. Once the room was empty, I turned off the anaesthetic machine, disconnected it and wheeled it out. Dave drew up the reversal agent and after I had removed Marty’s endotracheal tube, injected him. We both retreated, closing the cage door behind us to wait for him to wake up.
Ten minutes later he stirred, and within minutes was then up and about, prowling around the cage.
‘You should keep him in for a few days, so maybe allow him access to the neighbouring cage as well.’
‘Sure,’ Chris agreed. ‘Does he need any follow-up meds?’
‘Yeah. I’ll get them put up at the practice for someone to pick up later.’
‘Perfect, thanks.’
We carried all the equipment back to the car, loaded up, said our farewells and headed off.
The next day, Simon called me into his office.
‘Jon, Dave told me about yesterday …’
He left the sentence unfinished. We both knew what he was alluding to.
‘Yeah, probably not my finest hour, sorry.’
‘You realize how serious that could have been? And as the vet in attendance it was your responsibility.’
‘Yeah, I know. Lesson well and truly learned. Sorry.’
‘Good, that’s all I needed to know. A mattress and a homemade injection pole were pretty ingenious, but I think a dart gun is preferable in future.’
‘Agreed,’ I replied. ‘But only if it shoots straight.’
Maned wolves: fast facts
Chrysocyon brachyurus: The maned wolf
Distribution: South America, south and central Brazil, Paraguay, northern Argentina, Bolivia and south-eastern Peru.
Names: A male over a year is called a ‘dog’, the female a ‘dam’, and their young are called ‘pups’. A group of maned wolves is called a ‘pack’.
Life span: About 12–15 years.
Habitat: Semi-open areas of grassland, savannahs and forests.
Diet: Maned wolves are omnivores, solitary hunters of small to medium-sized animals such as rodents, rabbits, birds and fish, though more than 50 per cent of their diet is from vegetables and fruit (including lobeira, the so-called ‘wolf-apple’).
Gestation: 65 days with a litter of between 2 and 6 black-furred pups.
Weight: About 450 g when born, reaching about 23 kg as adults.
Growth: Pups nurse for 4 weeks, develop their distinctive fox-red coat at 10 weeks, wean at 4 months, are fully grown at 1 year when they leave their parents, and reproduce from 2 years of age.
Body temperature: 38–39 °C.
Facts: The maned wolf is the largest canid in South America. Although it resembles a fox with long legs and is commonly known as a wolf, it is actually neither, but a distinct species: the only member of the genus chrysocyon. They are mainly nocturnal with crepuscular (twilight) peaks in activity and live as monogamous pairs sharing about a 10-square-mile territory, but hunt, travel and rest in solitude, and out of the breeding season will seldom meet. They mark their territory and communication with powerful-smelling urine that is said to resemble a skunk’s spray. The female enters oestrus once a year for about 5 days between April and November. Females rear the pups, but males provide the food, which is regurgitated, to the young.
Conservation: The IUCN considers the maned wolf as ‘near threatened’, although it is considered endangered in Brazil, and it is estimated that only about 25,000 remain in the wild. Habitat destruction for agriculture and highways, disease from domestic dogs, poaching for body parts and traffic fatalities have all led to a decline in their number. The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums has instigated a Maned Wolf Conservation programme to promote the survival of maned wolves in Argentina by involving local people: www.waza.org/en/site/conservation/waza-conservation-projects/overview/maned-wolf-conservation.
9
HOLSTEIN COW
‘Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows.’
Mason Cooley
‘You can’t go wrong, it’s really easy to find,’ Amber had said.
Her words were ringing in my ears as I set off bleary-eyed from the backpackers’ hostel where I was staying in Greymouth, in New Zealand’s South Island. It was 3 a.m.; my job was to vaccinate 700 cows on a farm just over an hour away. ‘Head north out of Greymouth on the seven, drive for about forty-five minutes until you get to Mawheraiti, take the only left in the town and then the second left and drive all the way down that track. It ends in a farmyard.’
‘Sounds pretty straightforward,’ I’d said. ‘Seven north, Mawheraiti, left, then second left and drive to the end of the track. Yup, shouldn’t be a problem and I need to be there for 4 a.m. when they start milking, is that right?’
‘Yeah, they have a big rotary parlour, so they’ll set you up on a platform and leave you to it. They start milking at four, so they want you there then to inject the cows as they’re milked. All the vaccines are in the cool box, along with the injection guns. There’s a strap to go over your shoulder. I tend to have two on the go, one in each hand, but do whatever works for you.’
‘No problem. I should be able to manage that.’
‘It’s as dull as anything and will probably take four or five hours, non-stop without a break so take your iPod and make sure you’ve got something good to listen to!’
‘OK, thanks.’
And with that I had headed back to my hostel for an early night.
It was going to be nice to do some vet work again. It had been about five months since I last had anything to do with an animal in a professional capacity. Sure, it was going to be boring, mundane work, but it would ease me back into it, physically tiring, but not mentally. There were no drug doses to remember or complicated surgery to perform, just the simple routine of vaccinating cow after cow for five hours, and then I could come home and chill out for the rest of the day. Besides I needed the money. Five months of travelling through Southern Africa and Australia had drained the bank. I had intended to do more travelling in New Zealand, California, Canada, and then head home, with no plan to work in any of these countries, but my budgeting had gone pear-shaped. Landing in New Zealand, it was either a case of three weeks sightseeing and then back to England, or else try to find some work.
The privilege of the MRCVS qualification is that it is recognized in many countries across the world, including New Zealand. I was under thirty so I could get a working holiday visa without too much trouble, and so with a letter of good standing from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, I could register with the New Zealand Veterinary Association and be good to go.
I just needed to find work. There were plenty of locum agencies looking for keen vets, and with over three years’ mixed animal practice experience, I would be reasonably employable, but my first phone call was to a great university friend who had gone out to New Zealand for nine months, three years ago, and never come back. She was now running a small mixed animal practice in Greymouth.
‘Hey, Amber, it’s Little Jon. I’ve just got to Christchurch, planning on coming to visit you, but I don’t suppose you need an extra vet anytime soon, do you?’
‘You finally made it! Amazing! It’ll be so good to catch up. Regarding work, we are actually just getting to lepto vac time. We’ve got twenty thousand to do in the next six weeks, so an extra pair of hands would come in very useful.’
‘Lepto vacs? What’s that all about?’
‘Government policy. All milking cattle have to be vaccinated against leptosporosis to try to minimize animal-to-human transmission and vets have to sign off to say that it’s been done, which means we have to do the vaccinations.’
‘Seriously? Sounds like a good policy, but a lot of work for you.’
‘Well, with 40 per cent of New Zealand’s GDP coming from farming, and most of that being milk export, we can’t afford any disease scares. Besides, the government pays us to do it so it’s a good income stream for each practice. Bit like TB testing in the UK.’
‘Sure, I can see that, but don’t you have to TB test as well?’
‘We do, but that’s mainly done by specialist TB testers. We don’t do too much as a practice.’
‘Great, well I’ll take it. Thanks, Amber, I really appreciate it. I can’t wait to catch up.’
‘Hey, what are friends for!’
Two weeks later I arrived in Greymouth raring to go, complete with a white, automatic Subaru Legacy with a broken gearbox that meant its top gear was third. At 30 mph and 4,000 revs, it wasn’t the most economical vehicle I had ever owned. Of course, I’d test driven it, but only around the block, so the gearbox issue only became apparent on the journey back to my friend’s house, by which time I had parted with the cash and the bloke had done a runner. It had not been my finest purchase. Still, I had wheels, and they had got me over Arthur’s Pass. More importantly, I had my veterinary registration certificate, so I was official. Furthermore, I had been to a local charity shop and picked up the statutary vet’s uniform of khaki chinos, checked shirt and gilet, so I looked every inch the professional.
The alarm had gone off at 2.30 a.m. I’d had five hours’ sleep, and after months of not being on any real schedule, it was a complete shock to the system. With that nervous panic that comes from a first day on a new job, however, I found myself wide awake, and jumped out of bed, dressed and headed for the kitchen to make myself a coffee for the journey. A shower could wait. By 2.45 a.m. I was in the car and heading out of the hostel. Amber had reckoned it was no more than an hour to the farm, and the directions certainly seemed straightforward enough, but from previous nightmares as a new graduate, I had a healthy phobia of getting lost and so always tried to allow a bit of extra time for a new visit, and particularly as this was my first job for Amber.
The roads were empty save for the odd lorry, and Amber, having taken pity on me for the disaster of a car I had purchased, had lent me hers, so I made good time and reached Mawheraiti in forty minutes. It was still pitch dark outside so as I saw the sign welcoming me to the town, I slowed to a crawl to ensure I didn’t miss the turning. I needn’t have bothered because the town’s one solitary street lamp shone over the turning. At this point tarmacked road became gravel road and so, as I headed along it, headlights reflecting the plumes of dust that the car generated, I continued at a snail’s pace, so as not to miss the turning – second left, I recalled from Amber’s instructions. The first left came immediately after I turned off the main road, but it was another mile or so to the second turning. I was starting to second-guess myself. Had I missed it? Or had I got the directions wrong? But then, there it was, and I sighed in relief as I turned down it. Just drive to the end of this road and you’re there, I thought. It was 3.40 a.m. I was in good time. It couldn’t be too far down this road so I should be there promptly for a 4 a.m. start. I always like to give myself every advantage for making a good first impression. Arriving late the first time you meet a client can be a disaster. Not only is it unprofessional, it also means you have to work twice as hard to leave the client feeling satisfied and confident in your abilities.
The road wound its way through invisible countryside as I drove further and further into the blackness. It was eerie. There wasn’t a soul in sight, or any indication of life anywhere. The headlights of my car just picked out the dusty gravel track and the hedgerow either side of me. As I once again started doubting myself, I suddenly saw a light in the distance: that had be the parlour. The road brought me closer to that light, and eventually I came to a set of galvanized metal gates to the right of the track. The gates were open and led into a sizeable farmyard illuminated by the floodlight I had seen on top of the large shed, which I assumed was the milking parlour.
As I drove in, my arrival caught the attention of one of the workers who came over to greet me.
‘I’ve come to vaccinate the cattle,’ I said, winding down my window. ‘Where should I park?’
‘The manager didn’t say anything to us about it.’ He scratched his head for a moment in confusion, looking at the ground. ‘I mean, the cattle need doing, but I don’t think he told us, but then I guess he sometimes forgets. Anyway, who are you? I don’t think we’ve met before.’
‘I’m Jon, a vet from England, I’m doing some locum work over here for a bit.’
‘Nice to meet you, bro, I’m Nathan. You best grab your stuff and we’ll get you set up. Mike and Darren are just bringing the cows in so you’re in good time, we haven’t started yet.’
I gra
bbed the cool box and Nathan helped me with the rest of my equipment and headed into the parlour, a large, square space with the fifty-cow rotary parlour in the centre, leaving only a 2-metre gap all the way around.
A rotary parlour is a clever, but simple design. The raised central platform constantly rotates at a slow, steady pace, the cows walk onto it, facing inwards. The milker, standing outside the platform in the pit below then cleans the teats and places the clusters on the cow as she passes by. Regardless of how long the cow takes to be milked, she stays on the platform until it has completed a full revolution and then she backs off the platform and back into the yard and then out into the field.
‘Best put you about here, I reckon,’ said Nathan. ‘You’ll be out of Darren’s way, but the cows will only be halfway round so if there are any problems or you miss one as you’re reloading, you should have plenty of time to catch up.’
‘Sounds ideal, thanks.’
From one corner, Nathan found a large metal trolley on wheels and brought it over to me, putting the brake on and making sure it was pretty sturdy.
‘Will that do you, bro? Give you enough space? It should be the right height, it’s what we use if we need to do anything to the cows when they’re on the platform.’
‘Perfect, thanks,’ I said, loading my stuff onto it.
‘So how you finding New Zealand then? Explored much?’
‘Only arrived two weeks ago and just been sorting out my vet licence, but I was here in 2005 for the Lions Tour.’
‘Ha! Didn’t go too well for you guys, did it! Still, you boys were a great crack and we loved having ya. The country was heaving with you Lions fans, but it was awesome.’
‘Yeah, I travelled around most of the South Island then and knew I had to come back.’
‘Well enjoy it, bro. They call it God’s country for a reason!’
And with that he headed off in the direction of the high-pitched piping of the quad-bike horn and the mooing that heralded the arrival of the cattle.
The Travelling Vet Page 14
