Vet On a Mission

by Gillian Hick

  Once Donal Kavanagh and his sons had finished building on the new section to rehome our collection of horses, goats and poultry, we started working on dismantling the interiors of the old shed that was to be transformed into the practice. From then on, the day’s veterinary work ended to be followed by moving across the fence to the yard to see what progress had been made over the day and to plan for the next step.

  I was lucky that in my early days of working I had been involved in numerous animal welfare groups, and been involved in the design of building new premises. Also from my locum days, I had developed ideas of what worked and what didn’t. Long winter evenings had been spent sketching and resketching my ideal premises into the outline of the old stables. Compromises had to be made, but in the end I was satisfied. The consulting room was spacious, but not too big. The waiting room was to be open and large enough to separate predator from prey! Even more importantly, the cattery and kennels were in separate, soundproof rooms, ensuring that the in-patients would not be sharing airspace with some terrifying inmate.

  The theatre was a separate room and had direct access to the radiography room – useful during orthopaedic surgery. I was also happy to have a large treatment room, where animals would be prepared for theatre and other work-ups and diagnostic tests could be carried out. The ultrasound and blood machines, I knew, were excessive at the moment for the size of the practice, but equally I knew they were essential for the quality of care I wanted to offer our patients. I could only hope that by putting everything in place, patients would come. As the sketches were drawn and redrawn, the kids were happy to fill them with their own drawings of ponies and kittens and unicorns and penguins and snow leopards. It was looking like Clover Hill Veterinary Clinic would be an exciting place to work!

  Once the physical work began, things got even more hectic. Donal would leave for work before six, leaving me to organise the kids for the morning. Once the girls were in playschool, and Jack with a child minder, I would try to fit a day’s work into the morning. Over the day, we would keep in touch to see which of us could collect the kids at lunchtime and which would keep working.

  From there, the afternoon would be spent between the kids and the surgery, while Donal doubled as a labourer, or bricklayer, or delivery man, or any of the endless roles that were needed to keep up with John as he meticulously made his way through the building of the surgery. The clients were all interested in the building, work which was clearly visible from the current surgery. Occasionally, I would bring them over and give them a preliminary tour; the clients, as much as us, were eagerly anticipating the big move. The tiny eight-foot-by-eight-foot consulting room from which the entire practice was operating at the time was feeling smaller and smaller as the practice got busier and busier.

  It was exciting to watch the building grow. When the walls had been laid to a height of three bricks all around, I took to walking around it, imagining myself bringing a dog through this doorway on a trolley, or an owner through another doorway. I could see in my mind how it would all look once complete. The kids, of course, saw it as a massive playground, and Jack, not yet two years old, became a member of the building crew when Donal Kavanagh arrived one day with a delivery of blocks and a kid’s dumper truck for Jack.

  Technically, Jack was the first person to work on developing the new premises. Although only eighteen months by the time we got to this stage of the building work, he had developed an interest in anything involving mass destruction. When the old internal walls that had divided the ponies had to be knocked down, Jack was the first in with the hammer (under Donal and John’s watchful supervision) to begin the demolition act! The already-crumbling block bricks easily succumbed to the hammer, which he swung with an enthusiasm that made me have serious concerns about his teenage years!

  It was hard to catch your breath at times, there was so much going on. One evening, when, thankfully, the kids were chilling in front of a DVD, I was just seeing the last few appointments for the evening clinic while John and Donal were preparing for the next day’s jobs. In the distance, I thought I heard some cattle roaring, but being surrounded by field of sucklers this was not an unusual sound on the breezy spring evening.

  While I injected the elderly Labrador, whose hips were slowing him down more than his head, I was sure the sound was getting louder. Even Rollo’s ears pricked up as I helped heave his overweight body into the back of the car. My last patient for the evening was Nina, a dainty poodle. Her owner was waiting nervously in the car, terrified of meeting any other dogs with her beloved Nina (who I actually suspected would be quite happy to take on her fellow canines). I beckoned them in and the car door had only shut when I suddenly realised that the roar of cattle was even closer than I had thought; within seconds I could hear the unmistakable sound of hooves on the gravel driveway coming around the back of the surgery.

  An elderly and much respected professor of ours from college days used to say ‘when you hear the sounds of hooves, think horses not zebrae’, meaning common things are common. I couldn’t help thinking of him in those split seconds. As the first head appeared at speed, heading directly for Nina in her trembling owner’s arms, I didn’t waste any more time but threw my arms around the two of them and shoved them in the surgery door just as the cattle were upon us. As I slammed the door shut behind my client, I swung around to try to stop the unlikely visitors, but clearly the sight of me manhandling a body through the surgery door had spooked them and they spun around, showers of gravel flying in all directions, and ran back straight towards the fence separating the house from what was to become the new surgery. They hesitated for a split second looking as though they were going to jump, but then, in a frenzy of excitement, just ran straight through the flimsy fence designed for dogs and toddlers not five-hundred kilo cattle.

  John and Donal had heard the noise and came out to see what was going on. On seeing the men in their path, the three adventurous bullocks spun past them and in through the door of the surgery. The neat rows of blocks, three bricks high, laying out the outline of the rooms in the new surgery served as perfect hurdling grounds as they galloped from room to room, luckily clearing each tiny wall instead of taking it with them. In their excitement, streams of hot steamy faeces sprayed out of them, as they completed another lap of the building before charging back out into the front field.

  Luckily by then, Donal had had time to shut the main gates and between us we were able to curtail them in the front field while John made a few phone calls. We discovered that Sean Cooney, a local farmer, had just returned from the mart with his new charges who, instead of running down the ramp into the well-prepared shed, had managed to go through the side barriers and were last seen heading at speed down the laneway. As he lived around the corner, it was only a matter of minutes before we heard the rattle of the cattle trailer and between us, and ably assisted by his daughter Izzy Cooney, we herded the escapees back into the trailer. It was only then, with the cattle safely loaded, that I remembered Nina and her owner, stuffed into the tiny consulting room at the house. I hopped what remained of the fence dividing the house from the new surgery and found Linda waiting, surprisingly calmly, in the consulting room, Nina still clutched in her arms.

  ‘I didn’t know you treated large animals as well,’ was her only comment. She clearly thought that the three bullocks had simply been waiting their turn.

  It wasn’t the only time we had uninvited patients at the clinic – on several occasions over the years random animals arrived in to the clinic. My favourite of all guests arrived late one night as I was going to check on a dog who had cut himself badly while out chasing a stick in the woods. He had severed a vessel and was bleeding profusely, so despite the hour I took him into theatre and cauterised the wounds under anaesthetic. I came back to check on him well after midnight. As I went to unlock the back door, I had a feeling of being watched and as I looked into the darkness, there stood a deer, not six feet from me in the trees at the back of the surgery. We sto
od staring at each other for some time before I gently asked her, ‘Do you have an appointment?’ She blinked and then turned and ran, clearly unwilling to surrender herself to my skills.

  Patient care was, of course, the priority for every decision in the design and building of the surgery. When the walls of the theatre were being built, a five-centimetre hole had to be drilled in the wall near the ground, to allow the outlet of the anaesthetic machine to be passed through. John was concerned that the hole would allow rats in, and so fitted a vent on the outside of the wall. But I was more concerned about rats or mice or chipmunks or other tiny patients getting out! The plans had to be revised yet again!

  For the year or more that it took to build the surgery, free time or any sort of a social life were something that happened to other people. We hadn’t taken a holiday in years, and it didn’t look likely that we would.

  The most exciting thing that happened in the week was an occasional Indian take-away. Although my GP assured me that I must be fit from all the running around, I knew I was piling on weight. I was also more and more reliant on my inhalers, which I kept under my pillow at night as I woke regularly in need of some form of breathing assistance. I quite literally just didn’t have time to catch my breath!

  We both knew that we couldn’t keep up that sort of pace, but for the time being, there wasn’t much we could do to change it. A friend from college visited one day and told me about a locum they had used in their practice. Getting a locum vet to work in a small practice in the utility room of a house with no vet nurse or reception staff was a very unlikely possibility, but Vanessa assured me that this girl would have no problems with it.

  We decided to give it a go and booked the unfortunate Rowena for a Wednesday, thinking it would give us a mid-week break. By then Jack was also in play school, so we might potentially have a few hours of free time. Rowena called in the week before to look around the premises. I did show her the new building, which by then was plastered and beginning to look like a real surgery. If Rowena was shocked by the size of the existing premises, she didn’t show it, although she had worked in many muti-vet purpose-built premises before now. She was happy to try a few days of ‘sole charge’ in its truest form.

  When the ‘day off’ arrived, we left Rowena sitting having a cup of tea at the kitchen table because all the clients had refused to book for consultations as I would not be there. I was stunned by all the cases that, had I been there, would absolutely have to be seen immediately that could suddenly wait twenty-four hours. I was like a nervous mother, issuing lists of instructions, even though I would be in phone contact for the day.

  Finally, we dropped the kids to school and then the difficulties started. What did ‘normal’ people do in their free time? It was a cold and drizzly November morning, so going for a walk wasn’t very appealing. We had just had breakfast with the kids, so going for something to eat was out of the question. We couldn’t go home because inevitably I would be caught by a client not wanting to see the locum. All our friends were at work on a Wednesday morning.

  In the end, our day off turned into a trip to the local hardware store to pick the flooring and countertop covers for the reception in the surgery. After that we drank coffee, but always with the feeling that we should be doing something. We felt uneasy to be having a free moment and not doing something with it. We were almost relieved when it was time to collect the kids and go back to our normal routine. Once the kids were fed, Donal skulked back over to the shed while I took the kids to the local playground.

  I was home by five that evening to check in with Rowena, who had managed admirably for the day. The clinic had been very quiet, she told me, although one lady did call in without an appointment with an injured pigeon. It seemed that the handful of vaccinations and the one coughing dog had not needed the assistance of a veterinary nurse or receptionist.

  As I paid Rowena for the day she did admit she had encountered one problem she didn’t know how to solve: ‘Your farmer neighbour called in,’ she told me, ‘to deliver your box of vegetables and I wasn’t sure whether you would want one head of cabbage or two?’

  Rowena headed off to Australia not long after – I’m hoping not because of her couple of days at Clover Hill. If nothing else the couple of days off did make me realise that things would have to change.

  As the building work approached completion, we were finally ready for painting. John, ever the perfectionist, insisted that each wall needed to be primed before the multiple coats were added. Despite trying to involve the kids in the building work as much as possible, we had to draw a line at the painting. Pink and purple wouldn’t be the most appropriate colours for any of the clinical rooms although we did eventually give in with the addition of purple vet beds for any long-term patients (in addition to the more practical white which clearly showed up any urine leakage or bleeding or other forms of bodily fluid). Jack in contrast to the girls wanted to paint it all black.

  We spent the May Bank Holiday weekend moving the contents of the crammed consulting room and portacabin into the spacious new purpose-built premises. It was hard to believe that the next day we would open the doors with a choice of rooms to work between. Although there were still lots of little things to be finalised, we were ready to open the doors and wondered who the first patient might be.

  That Sunday morning, I took the kids to Mass, employing my usual tactic of arriving late so that hopefully I could contain them for the whole service. Within minutes, however, Fiona had managed to slip herself onto the back of the seat and fall backwards off it, clearly practising for her future as a gymnast. As I lifted her screaming body and ran out the door, with Jack and Molly close behind, I could feel the sympathetic gazes of the other parents. The screaming continued as we made our way out the church gates and up the road to where the car was parked. Then just as suddenly as it started, the screaming stopped.

  ‘Birdie!’ shouted Fiona, clearly now recovered. I looked to where she pointed and, sure enough, there was a tiny bird lying on the side of the road a few feet in front of us. Fiona has always had an affinity with birds of any type, and clearly this little injured avian had caught her eye, distracting her sufficiently from her own grievous injuries. I placed her down onto the footpath and she knelt beside me as I took a gentle hold of the feathered body. To my surprise it was as robin and apart from the fact that he was stunned, there seemed to be no other obvious injuries. His chest was plump and all wings and limbs were intact. Although I knew the likelihood of a wild bird surviving any sort of severe shock, we had to at least give him a chance.

  As I drove back to the house, Fiona carefully holding the precious little body close to her fluffy jumper, it occurred to me that the robin was going to be our first patient. We made him a tiny nest in the cattery unit, thankful that it was empty for the moment, and connected the heat lamp. It took all of my persuasion to peel Fiona away from her new charge, reassuring her that he needed to be left in the dark to give him a chance to recover.

  And recover he did. By the next morning, he was bright and chirpy and had clearly fed well from the food we had left. Our first patient was brought back to where we found him and he flew happily away.

  I was sure it was a good omen, although Donal was slightly more cynical about the fact that the first ‘client’ had flown away without even offering to pay his bill!

  Chapter 9

  An Element of Doubt

  Now that we were finally up and running in the new building, and although there were a hundred and one minor details that needed to be attended to each day, it almost seemed like we could take a breath. Suddenly, just having three kids, a butcher’s shop and a twenty-four/seven on-call veterinary practice seemed a breeze!

  Now, of course, we had time for the element of doubt to arise. Until then, we had ploughed time, energy and money into what seemed like an endless project. We were so busy that we didn’t even have time to consider the finances, or how we could make it viable – we just kept going, hopin
g that the energy of the whole job would keep us afloat. John was always the more conservative one. As a retired dairy farmer, he found it hard to believe that a purpose-built hospital facility for ‘just cats and dogs’ would be viable. I constantly slagged him about his lack of faith in me, but still he continued to count and record the number of cars that pulled around the house each day for the evening clinic while he was in the kitchen having a cup of tea.

  When it came to equipping the clinic, he seemed appalled that I was replacing the old, second-hand kennels with state-of-the-art stainless-steel kennels. It seemed like only the other day, I had spent my mornings sanding down the old kennels, removing years of grime and paint, until the original metal was exposed and I could repaint the endless tiny panels of bars. The kennels had served us well in the portacabin, but in a brand new building they would have looked shabby, apart from being so time-consuming to keep clean to hospital standards.

  It was a joy to watch the new kennels being unloaded from the articulated lorry that somehow made it up our country lane. The delivery man looked slightly puzzled until we drew back the original galvanised shed door so that he could walk through the (second-hand, but pristine-looking) glass doors into the building. It was a matter of hours before the shining new kennels were installed – two rows of four kennels for the dogs in one room, and in the next room (away from the dogs) three rows of three for the cats. Of course, within minutes the kids decided that they would make a perfect den for them along with our own dogs and assorted teddy bears. I couldn’t even let John see the invoice for what they cost in case he passed out.

  Despite his concern over the interior fittings, when it came to the actual building of the surgery it was he who insisted on everything being built to full house standards. It is probably the only veterinary practice in existence built to a higher standard than the actual house of the vet. Each room was fully insulated and soundproofed. The attic was sprayed with a fireproof insulation before the insulation material itself was laid down. The walls were plastered with a finish that felt like smooth marble and although the painting was left to me, it was with much supervision and numerous raised eyebrows when my efforts didn’t match the quality of the work that went before it.