Vet On a Mission

by Gillian Hick

  Thankfully, unlike the first kite I had radiographed a few years previously, it seemed that this kite had not been shot although subsequent post-mortem examination and toxicology results showed that the bird had most likely been illegally poisoned and dumped at sea.

  However, it seemed that from two isolated incidents of radiographing a kite my name had entered the radar of the Eagle Trust. Marc was now ringing to see if I could take in a red kite that has been found on the side of the road and brought to the attention of the wildlife warden.

  Marc quickly talked me through some of the facts around the reintroduction programme, so by the time the bird arrived I was able to check his tags and weigh him. His limp body appeared almost lifeless and it was apparent that he was in deep shock. Within minutes, I had administered the vitamin K antidote in case of rodenticide poisoning, and had the bird carefully cocooned in a heated, dark space to allow him time to recover. His body weight and condition were excellent, there were no obvious fractures or lacerations and a quick radiograph showed no abnormalities – or none that were apparent to me on my now second attempt at interpreting a red kite radiograph!

  It was only then that I rang Marc back to report on the case. Amanda and I did momentarily argue over whether the tag number had read 666 or 999 and with that discussion, Amanda immediately named him Damien, a name that stuck with him through the remainder of his lengthy life span!

  Thankfully, Damien made an uneventful recovery over a three-day period. On the first day, while he was still barely conscious, I had to stomach-feed him with a gently warmed liquid solution, checking and rechecking that I was inserting the tiny tube in the correct place while supporting his slumped body between my own body and left arm. By the second day, he was bright enough that I could gently probe some diced meat into his crop a few times over the day and by the third day, I had trouble even picking him up as he was so lively and I had to wrap him in a large towel, carefully avoiding the large talons, knowing that if they grabbed hold of me that could do severe damage to my future surgical career! Damien ended up staying an extra few days until he was collected to go to the rehabilitation pens before being released back to the wild the following week. Although Marc invited me to come to release him, with the week that was in it, it just wasn’t possible, but in the end I did get to see him as a couple of days later, as The Irish Times front page boasted a large picture captioned ‘Damien, the Red Kite being released into the wild after making a full recovery at Clover Hill Veterinary Clinic’. I later heard that the local solicitor was slightly put out at how we had managed to get a free ad on the front page of a national newspaper!

  In the nature of things coming in threes, Laura’s luck was staying. In the third and final week of her time with us, after the chinchilla in week one, Damien in week two, week three was equally generous to her!

  Bartje, a local neighbour’s son arrived at the back door on his bike just around dusk one evening. I could see he had a bundle under his arms, which turned out to be a short-eared owl. Again I bowed to the knowledge of the internet to find out that these owls were quite uncommon in the country and only occasional sightings had been made in a few locations, including Wicklow. After slagging the neighbour that I would send him a large out-of-hours bill and expect payment in cash by the morning, I gratefully took the surprisingly feather-light body, which apart from the fact that it was motionless, appeared to have no obvious physical damage.

  The owl, who was later christened Hedwig, had apparently flown at considerable speed into a glass patio window with the fading light and simply knocked himself out. Fiona, particularly, was enthralled by the owl and held the feathered body with a reverence that was humbling to watch. Reluctantly, I had to take him from her and place him into what was now becoming the bird unit, darkening the space and allowing him to recover with only the light from the heat lamp. When Laura arrived in the next day – for her last days with us – I casually mentioned that we had owl down the back and she roared laughing, assuming that I was winding her up.

  Despite my warning that we would be unlikely to have any exotics during her stay with us, she went back to college with a case study of a chinchilla, a kite and an owl – all of whom made a complete recovery.

  Chapter 16

  The Heroic Postman

  The relationship between dog and postman is well recognised. Almost every postman I know lives in fear of dogs and can spin lengthy yarns about the various canines they have to encounter on their daily rounds. If there is a postman training course, it should probably include a session on dog handling and behaviour as the most challenging part of the job! Although we have many postman clients who love their own dogs, even they are often clearly fearful coming into the waiting room of a full clinic – in fact they more commonly wait out in the car until we call them.

  Of course from the dogs’ point of view the relationship is perfectly understandable. There they are, doing a perfectly ordinary day’s work, protecting house and home, either in sole charge of an empty house or, even more importantly, protecting their beloved owners, when an strangely uniformed, usually male, body invades the territory. This unusual unknown character is never greeted by the owners to come in for a cup of tea (apart from maybe in our house, where Molly’s tea-making fetish ensured that the offer was always extended). The suspect then further unnerves the diligent dog by thrusting sheaves of paper, bearing not only his unwelcome scent, but also the scents of many other unfamiliar hands, into the letterbox and then without any acknowledgement, skulks off again, usually at speed. What self-respecting dog warrior would not be perturbed by this suspicious behaviour, day after day, without any logical explanation? As the pattern is repeated at a similar time every day the trusty canine builds up an anticipation of the event, growing in anxiety with each passing visit.

  It’s one of those situations where I can empathise with both parties. On one occasion, I was called to a house for the last visit to a little Jack Russell. Sophie, defying her gentle name, adored her owners, but was an absolute terror to Harry the local postman. I had heard reports from both the owners and from Harry as to her life-long mission to defeat his unwelcome invasions.

  Harry himself was the owner of a great big slob of a Labrador and, as a genuine dog lover, was understanding of Sophie’s phobia and had even showed me multiple puncture wounds on his ankle from when she had beaten him to the gate one day. He had never even mentioned the episode to Margaret and George, Sophie’s elderly owners, as they were clearly besotted by their child-demon.

  Harry simply took it in his stride and devised his own tricks and techniques to guide him safely to the letter box and back each morning, leaving Sophie, in Harry’s words as ‘at least a bit of protection on that lonely laneway’.

  But in her later years, Sophie began to have seizures. Epilepsy is not uncommon in terriers, but it usually presents at a relatively young age and can be well managed. In Sophie’s case, although for the first few weeks she responded well to the treatment, before long the seizures returned and with increasing aggression. I explained to Margaret and George that it was most likely that some sort of a brain lesion was causing the seizures and even if an MRI scan was a financial option, that a diagnosis would be unlikely to offer any realistic treatment at Sophie’s age.

  After one particularly bad night, the decision was made, so after the morning clinic, I made my way to their cottage to find them sitting outside in the sun with Sophie, clearly between seizures, on the front lawn. A half dose of sedation was enough to render Sophie oblivious to the sound of Harry’s familiar green van crunching down the gravelled driveway. With tears in her eyes, Margaret commented that it was the first time ever that Sophie had failed to ‘greet’ the postman and that even the previous morning she had ‘almost got a nip in’.

  Harry was unaware of Sophie’s medical condition, not knowing that the excitement of his daily visit often triggered a seizure within minutes of his departure and that I had tailored her medication to be at its pe
ak level for his arrival.

  Pulling up alongside us, he rolled down the window and recognising me sitting with the couple, roared out, ‘I hope you’re putting that divil to sleep!’ I could see it in his eyes that before the words were out, understanding dawned and if he could have hauled them back again he would have. There was an awkward moment of silence before George graciously inclined that Sophie had indeed ‘had her moments’ over the past few years.

  Harry muttered a brief ‘I’m sorry for your troubles,’ before moving on and slowly walked up the remaining laneway to carefully place the post in the letterbox. When he reversed back out the narrow lane, it was at a speed and delicacy that would have well befitted any funeral undertaker. With the untimely intrusion over, I proceeded to inject the intravenous anaesthetic that would result in Sophie breathing her last and was relieved to be pulling out of the drive myself after a sober cup of tea, at an equally reverential speed.

  I think the unfortunate story went around postman circles for a long time, as even our own postman commented on it a week or so later.

  My next postman versus dog encounter happened shortly afterwards and was, thankfully, a much more inspiring experience!

  It was one of those days that was already so busy that I couldn’t quite get my head around how I was going to get through it all when a neighbouring veterinary practice rang. A dog had been admitted to the surgery that morning by the local postman, Frank Rennix, who had found him having a full-blown seizure in the owners’ front garden. Clearly a dog lover, and unfazed by the sheer size of the thirty-five-kilo Boxer cross, Frank, abandoning all standard protocol and safety regulations, had scooped the fitting dog into the back of his van and rushed him to the nearest vet. Although he was able to supply the name and address of the house where the dog was found, as the owners were rarely at home, he had no further contact details.

  The vet in question, focused initially on stabilising the patient who was discovered to have a sky-high temperature, whether it was as a result of the prolonged seizures or causing the seizures she was at that stage unsure. Over the course of the morning, intravenous fluids and anti-seizure medication brought the condition under control. The temperature dropped to normal levels, but with any reduction in the anaesthesia medication the characteristic spasmodic paddling of all four limbs promptly resumed, indicating the onset of full-blown seizure activity.

  With the dog out of immediate danger, but still with a very grave prognosis, one of the nurses, filling in the hospital chart, scanned him for a microchip and was pleasantly surprised to find he was microchipped and registered to the name and address from which he had been brought by the postman. Until then, any attempts at getting a phone number had failed, so making contact with the owners was not possible. Although now with a phone number from the microchip register, the owners still could not be located as message after message was left unanswered. Decisions needed to be made as to the fate of the mysterious Brook, as he was identified by his microchip registration. Intensive and costly treatment would be required to simply keep him alive, without any guarantees as to his long-term outcome. In these cases, euthanasia is deemed to be the most realistic solution where no owner can be contacted. As the next line of enquiry, the persistent vet nurse decided to contact the veterinary practice where Brook had been microchipped and registered. When the phone rang in the office, I was elbow-deep in the abdomen of a dog who had swallowed a child’s small rubber ball two days previously and although grateful that the ever-ravenous Labrador had not choked on the sizeable object, was unfortunately seeing my warning to the owner on the phone that night come to reality, that there were no guarantees that the ball would pass through without surgical intervention.

  The neighbouring practice nurse passed Brook’s details on to Amanda, who, after searching the client records, came into theatre to talk to me. I was surprised, as knowing I was deep in surgery, she would usually deal with such issues herself but when she told me the identity of the owner as per our client records I was stunned. The owner of the dying dog was my sister, Paula, or more correctly, my young niece.

  The nurse was a little put out by the fact that the ‘owner’ had made no attempt to return the calls, but I didn’t have time to explain that my sister was a consultant paediatric surgeon, working hours unknown to us mere mortals and probably involved in equally life-saving surgeries on people’s children.

  As soon as the rubber ball was retrieved and the Labrador left in Amanda’s capable hands, I sent my sister a quick text saying that Brook was in the vet’s, but I would collect him, and to ring me whenever she had a chance. I didn’t realise the seriousness of his condition until I arrived at the neighbouring practice. I had the three kids loaded in the back of the car as they were on a mid-term break, all quite enthusiastic about going on a mission to collect Brook. Now that the dog had an owner, the vets had pre-emptively booked for him to go to the emergency clinic overnight as his condition would require continuous monitoring. The receptionist, who I had never met before, looked slightly sceptical as I trailed three excited children through the waiting room and out to the back kennels.

  I was slightly taken aback as I saw Brook, normally an exuberant body of pure energy and enthusiasm, lying lifeless in the bottom kennel, apart from the subtle sporadic twitching of his limbs, indicating that his body was still battling the unknown cause of his condition. The kids were equally taken aback and hung back in shock; they had obviously been expecting the Brook they knew and loved, who’d flattened them on numerous occasions with his joyful welcomes.

  Fiona, always the sensitive one, began to cry, while Jack busied himself examining the nuts and bolts on the drip stand.

  For any other client, I simply couldn’t, legally or any other way, transport an anaesthetised, seriously-ill animal in the boot of my car, on my own dog’s bed with three children in the back seat, without so much as informing the owner, never mind getting consent, but in the case of your sister, rules can be bent. Despite her slight anxiety, the nurse on duty allowed me to top up his anaesthetic with a slightly more long-acting intravenous medication, watching cautiously as I drew up a dose that would hopefully keep him stable for the relatively short journey home. I drew up an extra dose in case of unexpected delays on the way home.

  Trying not to think of my many discussions with my sister of the team of anaesthetists that would monitor the patient while she operated and the post-operative intensive care monitoring, I bundled the sleeping Brook into the boot of the car while Molly, with the efficiency of the eldest sibling, busied herself buckling Jack and Fiona into their seats, sensing the urgency on hand.

  I stayed a hair’s breadth below the speed limit all the way home, listening, over the kids’ excited squabbling as to how who would mind Brook, for his breathing, which was irregular and harsh. After a few minutes of dispute, Molly as the undisputed eldest child, proclaimed that I was the vet, but she would be the main minder as Paula was her godmother so, by that argument, Brook would be her godbrother. Fiona acquiesced, but not without offering a favourite unicorn to accompany him in the kennels.

  By the time we made it back to the surgery, Brook’s breathing was becoming lighter and the limb twitching was getting stronger. I topped up his medication in the boot of the car, not wanting to move him while he was unstable. Before long, we had him settled in a kennel and stable once more and I couldn’t help wondering if at any level of his consciousness he was aware of the drama of the day unfolding? Misty the Labrador was doing well and sitting up, interested in the whole proceedings, as we drew bloods from Brook to see if they would give us any indications to the cause of his dramatic illness.

  As Donal was now back home, I was able to focus on the evening clinic, without the aid of my junior assistants. While Amanda monitored Brook, I worked my way through the long waiting list, at one stage absently-mindedly noticing that it was quite some time since I had eaten. It was after eight when I had finished, and noticed a missed call on the phone from my broth
er-in-law. As an ex-agricultural scientist, he was ostensibly unperturbed by the whole event and promised to make contact with the postman, without whose intervention he would have returned with the kids after their hurling match to find a dead dog on the lawn.

  The blood results had indicated that the most likely cause was poisoning although without more significant and costly analysis it would be difficult to prove. Both his liver and kidneys were struggling and I had to be realistic about his long-term prognosis.

  ‘Even if he does pull though, Jim, there might be too much damage to his organs. And there is only so long we can keep him safely anaesthetised.’

  As a husband to a surgeon there was little I had to explain to him, apart from the difference in intensive care in a children’s referral hospital and a one-vet veterinary practice.

  I did, of course, offer to send him to the emergency clinic but was unsurprised when he was adamant that Brook stay where he was.

  By three o’clock that morning, I was beginning to regret his faith in me. Brook was still requiring deep anaesthesia to control the seizures and at that hour my brain was screaming resistance to trying to work out a fluid rate to maintain his kidney function while flushing out his toxic liver. Although I only had to hop a fence in my pyjamas to go from the house to the surgery, it seemed a long night. Jack decided to go out in sympathy with my disturbed night and woke frequently, syncing his times with the times when Brook was stable. At one stage I made myself a mug of hot chocolate and wearily munched on a handful of chocolate digestives, hoping they would give a bit of false energy to get me through the night. It was the early hours of the morning when I noticed a text from my sister who was clearly having a night like mine. Despite the hour, I texted her back, without being able to give any positive reassurance, knowing that she was as likely to be up at that hour as any other. The reply came almost instantly. She was even more realistic than me, knowing well the gravity of the situation.