Vet On a Mission

by Gillian Hick

  The ‘waiting room’ for the clinic, consisted of clients queuing around the gravel driveway of the house and there were increasingly frequent evenings when it looked like we would have to add a second lane! Equally, the consulting room that doubled as a theatre, apart from the time spent in meticulously cleaning the room between each job change, was just becoming inadequate.

  In fairness to the clients, I genuinely don’t ever remember anyone complaining about the inconvenience. From day one, I was simply overwhelmed by the sheer enthusiasm of the clients and put all my effort into providing the best possible care for their furry family members and their owners too, determined not to compromise patient care in our tiny facilities. And it had paid off. Clients came and then their relations came and then their friends came and still they kept coming. At the time we opened, it was deemed unprofessional for veterinary professionals to advertise and without this, one of the local planners had advised that setting up in such a remote area – up a windy road through the woods, where the access consisted of a narrow track with grass growing up the middle – would be madness. But then she too became a client, as did her extended family and friends, and she was delighted to be proved wrong.

  In the winter months, the clinic had to run around the weather forecast and special midday clinics – just at the time when I was due to collect the kids from school – had to be added for elderly people who didn’t fancy driving up the twisty roadway on a dark evening. As the months went by, we continually adjusted and adapted to the needs of a practice that was growing at a somewhat alarming rate.

  So, far from getting myself ready to join one of the local practices, I was back with a pen and paper, sketching, converting our existing farm shed, which comfortably housed a handful of retired equine pensioners, along with the infamous Robo, the kids’ pony. We started by looking at converting half the shed and moving the horses to the other half, but then, as my plans became more adventurous, the half for the veterinary practice extended into the far side, and the horses got sketched into an adjoining building. We were due to meet with Donal Kavanagh, who had built the original shed, to see about building a new shed for the horses before we started evicting them. The afternoon of the meeting, we were out the front with the kids when one of the neighbour farmers drove up the windy road. As usual on seeing us outside, the big red truck pulled to a halt and Molly, still enthusiastic about inviting the entire neighbourhood in for a cup of tea, ran in to boil the kettle. It was a familiar scene as we had come to know John Armstong well in the years since we had moved to the rural village of Glenealy.

  I had first met John high up on hill farm, somewhere between Laragh and Glendalough, back in my pre-children days when I was working in Riverside Veterinary Clinic. The same red truck was parked outside the shale driveway of an old farmyard, and I followed him up the rough laneway that looked like it was just going to disappear into the misty mountaintop. It was only when we reached the semi-derelict shed and I saw the two bachelor farmers who actually owned the property that I realised that John had just come along to help. It didn’t take long to realise why I might need help as I peered into the dark shed to see three loose bullocks charging around in utter confusion at being penned into the tiny building with no natural daylight. Over the indignant bawling of the cattle, I nervously asked where the crush was, as I had come to TB test the three bullocks – the entire stock of the elderly brothers.

  John chuckled gently at my naive question and, without answering, started sliding the rusty bolt and heaving open the door that was wedged in what looked like generations of old manure. Temporarily stunned by the stream of daylight that shone uninvited to the dark corners of the shed, the cattle stood snorting at us as I looked on in bewilderment, wondering how I was supposed to clip and inject these animals, never mind read their muck-caked tags. Still John said nothing. As my eyes gradually accustomed to the dim light, I noticed a rusty farm gate in the corner, tied with an old rope to what once was the outline of a window frame. As he moved quietly between the cattle, he pulled the gate, or what was left of it, around, producing what, I assumed, was to be the crush. It didn’t escape my notice that neither Mick nor Jimmy, the bachelor brothers, chose to join us as I hesitantly made my way to the far corner, hoping to persuade the steaming beasts into the makeshift crush.

  As there wasn’t much space, the first two actually ran into it without noticing, and I tried to steady my hand as I gave a cursory clip to the neck in two areas before injecting the sites. By the time I got to the second bullock, the first was three-quarters of the way out the front. He made a lunge over the gate, landing halfway over it and balancing precariously, before the whole thing collapsed, the dusty rope easily surrendering to the weight. I desperately jabbed the needle into my second patient, just as he too joined in the great escape, scrambling awkwardly over what remained of the gate.

  Without any visible signs of dismay, John quietly set about setting up the gate once more and, unknotting the remains of the freighting rope, managed to somewhat secure the temporary crush. Having seen the frolics of the first two, the last remaining bullock was having none of it. He wheeled from side to side, carefully keeping himself behind his braver brother every time we approached. The heavy breath of cattle was soon matched by my own as we repeatedly tried to anticipate the movement of the reluctant beast as he repeatedly dashed out from the gate just when we thought we had him, lashing out on the last occasion and taking a bar of the rusty gate with him as he galloped by. However, far from getting irate with the bullock and resorting to shouting and roaring to further wind him up, as many farmers I had worked with would have done, John stayed calm and patiently watched and waited until, finally, the reluctant bullock almost accidently ended up between the crush and the wall. In a flash, I reached over the remaining bars and clipped and injected before the bullock had worked out his escape route.

  It was only as we were reversing out the door, keeping a watch on the three eyeballing us from the far corner, that it occurred to me that I hadn’t recorded the tag numbers. Not only that, but my little blue book in which all the data was to be written was lying open, face-down on the well-rotted floor. Cautiously easing my way forward, I used an old pitchfork to pull it towards me, not wanting to further offend the bullocks by invading their territory once more. The pencil had long since disappeared, unlikely ever to see the light of day again. By the state of the tags on the cattle’s ears, it was unlikely that I would have been able to read them anyway, so I had to reply on Mick’s reassurance as he read out their supposed numbers from an old piece of paper which he pulled out of his back pocket.

  John laughed easily as we made our way back down the narrow laneway. ‘Well, thank God they weren’t heifers or we would have had some fun getting blood sample,’ I said, catching my breath to keep up with him.

  ‘Ah, sure we would have managed that too,’ he replied. Little did I know at the time that over the following months I would meet John again and again in many such situations. Anywhere there was a batchelor or a spinster farmer, or an elderly uncle, or a yard that was somewhat less than adequate, John would quietly appear, whether for a planned TB test or a late-night calving, he seemed to have an uncanny ability to turn up just when he was needed. Although I was always delighted to see the familiar red truck, it usually meant there was some sort of hardship in store!

  Despite the fact that he had his own considerable dairy herd and sheep flock, for the first six months in Riverside, I never once saw a call out to John’s yard in the day-book. Obviously all the experience in handling everyone else’s veterinary issues had left him well equipped to handle his own. With that in mind, I was a little anxious when Seamus rang me one afternoon to say there was a call to go to a calving for John Armstrong. I first assumed it was in some derelict hill farm, and initially felt slightly more enthusiastic when Seamus told me it was in John’s own yard – but only for a few moments, until it dawned on me that if John needed help calving a cow, it was not going to be
straightforward.

  As though reading my thoughts, Seamus confirmed my anxiety as he added, ‘I can’t ever remember getting a call to a calving to Armstrong’s before. I’m tied up testing here for the next hour or so. Go out and give it a go and when you get stuck, ring me. I’ll get finished up here and go out and give you a hand.’

  Despite his well-intentioned offer, the automatic assumption that I wouldn’t be able to do it only made me more determined to succeed, totally dissolving any previous fears I might have had.

  As I drove down the long, well-maintained driveway, I was thrilled to see, far from the dilapidated sheds where I usually encountered him, a modern milking parlour, a spacious well-bedded shed and a well-planned cattle crush.

  And again, contrary to our usual encounters, everything was ready and waiting, without the usual delay of having to find the farmer, or go and herd up the cattle, or wait for the water to boil on the old stove.

  If John looked disappointed to see me instead of Seamus, he didn’t show it; I silently hoped I wouldn’t let him down. The well-conditioned Friesian cow stood patiently as I inserted my lubricated, gloved hand to feel two tiny hooves in the birth canal. Initially everything seemed okay, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that everything felt fresh and not, as is often the case, like someone had been trying for the last hour without any success.

  ‘I put my hand in, but when I felt things weren’t right, I just called Seamus straight away without messing around any further,’ John told me, as though reading my mind.

  And of course, he was right. Although the front feet were well positioned, when I felt back for the nose to follow on, it was not there. As the cow was quite roomy, I was able to get back past the legs and reach down into the uterus, where I could feel the head of the calf, arching away from me. As the calf was relatively small, I thought it would be easy enough to pull the head around into the birth canal, and then deliver it in its rightful position along with the tiny hooves. But after a few unsuccessful attempts, I realised that it was not going to be so simple. Far from being able to pull the head around, the neck was stiff and hard and I knew that not only was the calf dead, but it also had some sort of deformity that was preventing a normal delivery. It’s always more difficult to deliver a dead animal that a live one, but in this case I knew it was going to be trickier than usual, as the deformity might indicate the need for a Caesarean section – always a last resort with a dead calf.

  Seamus’s offer of help echoed in my mind, but then (I hope out of concern for the cow and not out of my own stubbornness) I decided I might as well give it a go. Working in reverse order from a normal calving, I tried to push the hooves and front legs back out of the birth canal, hoping to make room to bring the head through on its own. Although this would never usually work – and many a difficult calving is simply because the head has come through without the legs – in this case, I felt that the tiny frame of the lifeless animal just might make it through with the legs back, not having any sizeable shoulders to block the birth canal.

  After a few failed attempts to then pull the head forward, I hooked a calving rope around the lower jaw, not having to concern myself about the risk of fracturing the delicate bones. Using as much force as I was comfortable with, I painstakingly worked the deformed head into the birth canal. By rotating the body from side to side to get the shoulders through, the calf was eventually slithered through with the last pull.

  We were silent as we watched the lifeless form lying on the straw. It was clear that it was grossly deformed and would never have been compatible with life. The cow nuzzled it silently, clearly aware that the calf was dead. It was a sad scene, but at least we had avoided the Caesarean section.

  By the time Seamus rang to say he was on his way over, we were sitting down in the homely kitchen, having the first of very many cups of tea that I would have there over the following years. As I bit into one of Margaret’s fresh buns, I relayed to Seamus the details of the delivery, and he seemed somewhat taken aback that his assistance had not been required.

  It was a few years after that episode that Donal and I were looking at houses to buy in the Wicklow area, needing to upsize our current location due to the then imminent arrival of Molly. When we went to look at the house that we later went on to live in, I pointed John’s yard out to Donal as we drove by. He had heard many stories of the our hillside encounters and felt as though he knew him as well as I did. I noted with interest that day that the entrance to John’s yard was exactly one mile from our own new entrance.

  Before we moved, I had rung John to ask him who I could get to fence the property and a few other such jobs. On the day we arrived with our collection of ponies, the Jersey cow, the three dogs and, of course, three-month-old Molly, he arrived in with a batch of fresh buns from Margaret. And after that it sort of evolved as he would often pass by during the day and drop in for chat so that by the time Fiona and then Jack arrived on the scene they never knew anything other than him being a part of the family.

  The long-standing joke about ‘John’s chair’ in the kitchen went back to before Fiona had started playschool – we went to our local furniture shop to buy a new table and chairs for the kitchen, as it seemed to be the central point in our house. When the assistant asked how many people were in the house, Fiona instantly demanded six chairs – one for each of us, including John.

  When we went on our first holiday, it was John who minded the collection of ponies, the cow, the dogs and cats, the fish and even the tortoise. A far cry from the steaming bullocks up in Laragh!

  John was well involved in the setting up of the practice, and although he had his doubts about a small-animal practice ever succeeding in a rural area, he was always ready to help in any way.

  So, on the afternoon that Donal Kavanagh was coming up to discuss building another shed so that we could move the practice, we asked John to drop in too, if he was passing, as having worked with his father as a builder before his farming days, he had a good insight into what would need to be done and would also have many contacts of reputable builders in the area.

  With the kids more or less settled in bed, we sat around the kitchen table – myself, Donal, John and Donal Kavanagh – and roughly drafted a plan to add on to the existing shed, leaving the original thirty-by-thirty-foot building to become the new veterinary surgery (giving us back our utility room, taking the washing machine and dryer for all the household washing and the surgery from the bathroom back to the utility room, and hopefully giving us a little more space while allowing the practice the room it needed to expand).

  Donal Kavanagh headed off to work on a price for his end of things, while myself, Donal and John sat late into the night looking at what would be needed to do the internal conversions.

  Although we already knew a great builder who had done work for us in our previous home, he now lived quite a distance away and we reckoned his price would be beyond what we could realistically afford. John thought about it for a bit and threw around a few names, but didn’t seem entirely happy with any of them. He was clearly deep in thought and didn’t seem in a hurry to go home. Just as he was heading out the door, he casually mentioned that he might, once Donal had the floor in the original shed, start laying a few blocks until he came up with someone, if that would be okay with us. We were slightly stunned – although he had taken early retirement he was probably busier than ever, as always helping out and appearing in all variety of places that you wouldn’t expect to meet him. Nonetheless we were delighted that everything seemed to be taking shape and Clover Hill Veterinary Clinic was going to get a new home.

  Chapter 7

  Daffodil Lady

  At first, Jenny seemed like just one of those clients who I would meet occasionally as they passed through my life without ever making much of an impact. With some clients, you recognise their arrival by the sound of their dogs yapping. Jenny, I always recognised by the sound of her much-abused car – an ancient Toyota Corolla in faded rusty red that al
ways seemed to have more health issues than her dog.

  Jenny, like myself, had little respect for her vehicle, dragging its aged body down the motorway from Dublin despite an overheating engine, to check a minor irritation in her little shih-tzu’s ear. I wasn’t in a position to criticize, as every time I called into our local garage to give Jessie her monthly joint injection, Pat Driver, the mechanic, would look up at me from under his glasses and quietly ask, ‘Have you checked the car for oil lately?’ The question was futile, as the current pace of my life did not allow for such indulgences to myself, never mind the car. So, over time, we came to an unwritten agreement that I would keep Jessie, his beloved dog, up to date with her vaccinations and worm doses, while Pat would look after the car. Jessie never did seem terribly enthusiastic about the arrangement; I usually just about caught sight of the tail end of her slinking off as I pulled into the yard but, despite her reluctance, both she and the car kept going very well for a long time.

  As always, Jenny’s consultation was preceded by a trip to the hose attached to the wall outside the clinic. The engine steamed and hissed as she opened the bonnet of the car to refill the water container. The reason she travelled such a distance to me was that at the time, we were a referral practice for the Blue Cross, though it was questionable whether it was actually cheaper to pay the price of the petrol and the damages to the car than to go to her local practice.

  Bella was an itchy type and, over the time I knew her, always suffered some degree of skin allergy and an ongoing ear irritation. Due to Jenny’s meagre finances, we were always only just about able to keep it under some sort of control, without ever being able to get to the root of the problem. Expensive medications and diets were way beyond her budget, but she had a big heart and would meticulously cook individual meals for Bella, probably of better quality than the food she ate herself. In her own words, Jenny always had ‘plenty of time’ on her hands – a concept that seemed so totally alien to me at the time – and so Bella’s coat was always well-groomed and in as good a condition as could be expected with her allergies.