by Gillian Hick
‘Has ’e got any blood in ’im at all, den?’ asked one of the onlookers, breaking the tension as a roar of laughter broke out.
‘Well, he’s very old, you see, and with his weak heart and that, his veins are collapsed,’ I told them, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about.
I aimed the needle again and this time, not a gush, but a trickle of blood oozed out from the hub of the needle.
Trying to steady my shaking hands, I pushed the needle in fully before attaching the loaded syringe. Slowly, I depressed the plunger, waiting for the head to drop and the wagging tail to quieten. A second later, a bubble appeared at what should have been the vein and Bruno looked over as though to see what I was at. The vein had blown.
With an impending sense of doom, I withdrew my needle.
‘Is tha’ it, den? Is tha’ ’im done?’
I looked down at the syringe and saw that only two millilitres had gone out of the 20-millilitre syringe. Bruno looked as bright as ever.
‘Eh, no, I don’t think that will do. His vein is so weak – we’ll have to try the other one.’
Despite the situation, I could only be grateful that Bruno seemed to be enjoying the whole event and that the owners were far from distraught. Carefully, I clipped the vein on the opposite leg, trying not to think about what I would do if this one blew as well.
The silence fell again as, for the third time, I inserted the needle, this time poking blindly at anything that could possibly resemble a vein. A panic started to rise in me before I heard a voice behind me.
‘D’ye wan’ me te have a go, luv? I’m good at these.’
A murmer of assent rippled through the room.
‘Yeah, good on ye, Paddy!’
‘Give yer wan a break.’
Coming over from behind, Paddy took the needle from me as I stepped back in a daze, wondering about the implications of allowing a client to inject a ‘Veterinary Surgeon Only’ medication.
With practised skill, he adjusted the elastic tie, had a quick feel of the area, spat on his fingers and rubbed them vigorously over the clipped site. He met with a cheer as he inserted the needle, drew a gush of blood and unhesitatingly injected the remainder of the fluid into the old dog who, with a last sigh, made his way out of the world.
‘Jaysus, Paddy, ye should o’ been de vet!’
‘He’ll show ye how to do it, Doc.’
Hoping forlornly that the deep red flush that was rising up my neck was not too noticeable, I packed up my gear, thankful that in all the excitement I seemed to have been forgotten. Paddy followed me out to the car. He seemed sympathetic as he pushed the wad of crumpled notes into my hand.
‘Don’t worry,’ he assured me, ‘we all have days we can’t get the bleedin’ vein but, sure, if ye ever need a hand, ye know where to find me!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
LEARNING ON THE JOB
The weeks seemed to fly by and I became totally caught up with the clients and their cases. Justin tended to leave me to it, partially, he claimed, because, being only two years out of college himself, he didn’t have all that much experience either. To me, however, he seemed to be so terribly competent, compared to myself. The great burst of enthusiasm with which I had started was gradually being eroded by the ups and downs of veterinary practice which, in time, I would come to accept as part of the nature of the job.
Before we qualified, one of our lecturers had warned us that within six months in practice we would have lost some of our initial confidence. She was wrong. It took a mere six weeks before the first bitch I spayed had herniated, a horse castration had bled and I had sent a gelding with a foot abscess into the veterinary college for stifle X-rays – the foot abscess burst in the horse-box on the way in and along with it, my brimming confidence.
Because of Michael’s incapacity, I had begun working before many of my classmates, most of whom had wisely decided to take a well-earned break before surrendering themselves to the whims of the general public.
A few sympathetic friends listened as I recounted my tales of woe. My mobile phone bill for those six weeks was more than all my other expenditures put together. I think the friends were secretly horrified by my appalling blunders.
‘But I thought you had castrated horses before?’
‘I had!’ I wailed. ‘And they were fine – I just don’t know what happened to this one.’
‘But you got an honour in surgery, Gill! You’d done loads of suturing before,’ consoled another friend.
‘Yeah, but five days later they brought the bitch back. The lump was the size of a melon. The first thing the owners wanted to know was if they could sue me for it.’
‘How could I have missed a foot abscess?’ I asked Justin, who seemed to be amused by my bewilderment.
‘Ah well, sure, you’ll know better next time.’
That didn’t make this time any better.
And night time was no better. My nights became filled with bizarre dreams in which I relived the day’s cases. One week, we had a litter of pups with a particularly virulent form of the canine parvo virus. We lost quite a few of them and it was really getting to me. I knew it had to stop when I woke up in a sweat one night to ask Donal if he had had his parvo vaccinations yet!
Luckily, just before I started filling in application forms for a job in McDonald’s, a few of my friends finally did start to work. I wished them well as sincerely as I could, but, secretly, I was dreading to hear how great they all would be!
And then the tales of woe started to pour in. It was hard to believe, but my cock-ups weren’t as bad as some. Suddenly, I began to feel there was hope.
So gradually that I didn’t really notice it happening, things started to improve. Animals stopped dying. Occasionally, I even cured one! Once in a while, I surprised myself by knowing what was actually wrong with one before handing out a variety of coloured pills.
I couldn’t believe it when one day I clearly heard a farmer in the reception room asking for ‘the young lady vet, please’.
Once, as I explained the options to the anxious owner of a very old and arthritic dog, she took my hand in hers and assured me that she would do whatever I thought was best. She had absolute faith in me. Unfortunately, the dog died, but I don’t think I was directly responsible for it.
I knew things were definitely looking up when the nightmares stared to lessen. Getting a half-way decent night’s sleep was a big improvement.
‘Don’t worry,’ I confidently reassured my friends. ‘It does get better!’
‘Well, it couldn’t possibly get worse,’ replied one, as he filled me in on his latest disaster.
Needless to say, though, despite everything you learned in college and despite all the experience in the world, there are some cases that you could never be prepared for.
* * *
One morning, I had to attend an urgent call in a housing estate in one of Dublin’s dodgier inner-city suburbs. For once, I knew where I was going, as I had attended the family before to scan one of their trotting horses to see if she was in foal. They were a tough bunch, but very genuine.
Despite this, I still felt some trepidation as I neared my destination. This time, the call was to attend the guard dog. I had admired him from a distance on my previous visit although his enormous, arched frame and snarling teeth didn’t invite any further inspection. He could be best described as a cross between a Rhodesian Ridgeback and a Rottweiler, with a bit of German Shepherd thrown in for good measure. Rambo meant business. The Murphys proudly informed me that theirs was the only house in the estate that hadn’t been broken into in the last year. I wasn’t surprised.
Armed with my strongest muzzle and a fast-acting sedative, I knocked on the door of number twenty-nine. One of the sons, Deco, yanked the door open while I was still holding on to the knocker. Although he was only a child, he looked wise beyond his years; streetwise anyway.
‘Missus, come in quick. Rambo’s bollixed!’
‘What hap
pened him?’
He led me out to the shed in the tiny yard, talking as he went. ‘There wasn’t a thing wrong with ’im an hour ago. There was a bit of a scrap on de Avenue and de pigs arrived. Some lad tried to jump over de wall to get away an’ Rambo let out a bit of a woof. Yer man fucked off. But when I came back out afterwards, Rambo was knackered – eyes rollin’ in ’is ’ead and shakin’ all over de place.’
Instantly, my mind was going over the different forms of epilepsy – sudden onset, variable recovery – but still, I would have expected the dog to have improved by now. When I saw the giant beast lying in his kennel, however, my diagnosis changed. Without ever having seen such a case before, it was all too obvious. Rambo was stoned.
The usually tense muscles were slumped in total indolence and his tail lazily thumped out a friendly rhythm. He gazed at me blearily through glazed eyes, as though slightly surprised to see me. I couldn’t help laughing as I knelt down to examine him, thinking of our ethics lectures in college, where the morals of tail docking, or the rights and wrongs of breeding brood bitches, had been the usual topics of discussion. Or maybe I had missed the lecture on how to deal with a stoned guard-dog, in the sole charge of an under-age child. I sobered up a bit as I realised that I must also have missed the lecture on the treatment of the same patient. I hadn’t a clue. In all probability, Deco and his friends were more likely to know what to do than I was.
‘Deco, he’s been doped and it’s very important that I know what exactly he’s had, so that I can treat him properly.’
‘What d’ye mean he’s doped? I swear to Jaysus I’m clean. I never touch the bleedin’ stuff. Me Ma’d kill me.’
Looking into his troubled face, I was inclined to believe him. He had no reason to lie to me. Drug-dealing was commonplace in this particular estate but only the guards would be seen as a threat. A thought occurred to me …
‘You said he was okay when the guards arrived out on the Avenue and when someone tried to climb the wall, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah, there wasn’t a bother on ’im. He let a woof out of ’im and nearly caught yer man by the bollix when ’e tried to hop over. Ye could hear ’im roaring all the way down the street.’
I tried to suppress the laughter that was threatening to erupt. ‘Is there any way the man could have dumped anything into the yard when he tried to climb over?’
‘Jaysus, Doc, you’re probably right. I know yer man and ’is brudder’s been done before for dealing.’
A quick search around the yard revealed two torn plastic bags. Traces of a fine, white powdery substance adhered to the plastic with big drools of saliva.
Once again, I was hindered by my ignorance. Normally, the staff at the Beaumont Poison Centre provide excellent information on the treatment of any form of poisoning. I think it amuses them to deal with a veterinary surgeon instead of a doctor. But you have to know what substance you’re dealing with. I could imagine their reaction if I rang wondering what to do with a very chilled-out looking dog, surrounded by a quantity of empty plastic bags.
‘Do you know what he deals in, Deco?’
‘I haven’t a bleedin’ clue. He’s a bad fucker ’e is. I’d ’ave nothing to do with him.’
I wasn’t brave enough or foolish enough to try to find out myself. In the greater scheme of things, my life was worth more to me than Rambo’s.
As so often happens in veterinary, I resorted to what is officially termed as ‘symptomatic therapy’ which, roughly translated, means you don’t know what else to do. The only vaguely useful thing that I did was to administer an emetic to force Rambo to vomit what was left of the substance in his stomach.
By the time I had left, Rambo was snoring peacefully. I hoped he would be okay. Occasionally he would yelp and his legs would paddle frantically as though he were hallucinating.
‘Let me know how he gets on, anyway,’ I called out to Deco as I drove off.
I didn’t hear any more for a couple of weeks until one evening when Deco’s brother arrived at the surgery looking for some worm doses for the horse. Apparently Rambo had slept for most of the day and then had made an uneventful recovery.
Sometimes the best learning is done on the job.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A HELPING HAND
I groaned inwardly when I saw my clients in the waiting-room. Two girls – probably sisters by the look of them – clutching a small box, containing God only knew what. Both were dressed in identical shiny tracksuits and brand-name runners. They had the hardened look of kids that hadn’t had it easy growing up.
I didn’t like the idea of treating any animal with only children present but I knew I would be wasting my time asking these girls to come back with their parents. The only way I would see them was if something went wrong and then, not only would I meet the parents, but also a variety of brothers or cousins or neighbours, who would join in the fight. Equally, I knew that whatever was in the cardboard box was probably all that those girls had.
Reluctantly, I sighed and waved them in. At least, I thought, the parents would hardly be the litigious type – much more likely to slash my tyres or something. The taller of the two plonked the box on the consulting table.
‘His name’s Geronimo,’ she muttered, staring sullenly at the floor. Mistaking my hesitation, she proceeded to pull a plastic bag out of her back pocket, containing an assortment of loose change, probably about five euro or so.
‘I have money.’
I carefully put my hand in through a crack in the top of the box and groped around until I felt a furry creature wriggling about inside. Something felt wrong. I firmly grabbed hold of the little animal but my heart sank when I saw what emerged. Why did it have to be this one? There, in the palm of my hand, lay a large tumour and attached to it was the emaciated remains of a gerbil. I pitied the tiny creature as he squirmed helplessly in my hands. Clearly, there was only one solution for him but I wasn’t quite sure how the stony-faced girls would take it.
Gently, I explained in terms that they would understand, that Geronimo would not be going home with them. A deathly silence followed, until I noticed a small tear trickling down the grubby face of the younger girl. As I turned to get her a tissue, the older girl also noticed.
‘Will ye stop yer whingin’, Sharon!’ and then the silence was shattered as the two of them began to sob hysterically, in long loud gulps, as though the world would end.
The usual platitudes that ‘He’s had a good life’ and that, ‘He won’t suffer any more’ were lost in the din that they made.
In desperation, I pushed the bag of money that was still sitting on the table back towards them.
‘Why don’t you buy another gerbil on the way home?’
As suddenly as it had started, the mass hysteria stopped. Beams of delight radiated from the two tear-stained faces and, as though they were afraid that I would change my mind, they grabbed the bag and ran out the door without a further glance at the unfortunate Geronimo. Once they had gone, I put a fiver of my own in the till, and drew up one millilitre of the lethal injection into a tiny syringe. The little body went limp in my hand before I had finished injecting him.
In the usual bedlam of a Monday afternoon, I had soon forgotten all about my two young clients. The first patient of the evening was a dainty-looking poodle, who trotted in happily on the end of her owner’s lead. Suddenly, as I was lifting her up on to the table, I heard a racket breaking out in the waiting-room. As the commotion grew louder, I tried to smile reassuringly at my client, but then the door burst open and a large, untidy woman entered, followed by Liz, looking even more harassed than usual. A battered cage containing about half a dozen young, fluffy gerbils was thrown on to the table with a violence that caused the alarmed poodle to let out a shrill yelp before jumping into the arms of its owner, who promptly disappeared at speed out the door.
‘Ye stupid cow, ye! I never wanted that bleedin’ rat in me house in the first place and now them two bitches of mine come home with si
x more. If yez ever give dem money again, my Paddy will come down and thump ye one!’ With that she stalked out, slamming the door behind her.
Liz and I looked at each other in bewilderment before breaking into helpless fits of laughter.
I got a few funny looks from the remaining clients in the waiting room and finished off the clinic under the watchful, beady eyes of six gerbils.
Much to the disgust of Popeye, the resident cat, they remained with us until, one by one, we found homes for them – apart from the smallest little fawn one, who eventually gained resident status and was christened Olive.
CHAPTER NINE
PRACTISE WHAT YOU PREACH
I was a bit taken aback by the man’s request. When he had come into the surgery for a ‘quick word’, I had assumed that it was about something four-legged. However, he introduced himself as the principal of the neighbouring girls’ secondary school, and explained that they had organised a special day in aid of World Animal Week. As part of the event, they usually had the local vet in to give a talk, but, as I was a ‘lady vet’, as he so politely put it, he thought that his students would be more interested in hearing about the career from my point of view. I hesitantly inquired as to the nature of the talk and roughly how many were expected to attend.
‘Only a handful of transition-year students,’ he replied. ‘Ten or fifteen minutes at most – just explaining to them about the sort of work you do and how you got started. I know you’re new to the job but that’s all the better from their point of view. There are some really great kids in the school but between me and you, most of them don’t get much support from home. It would be great to give them a bit of incentive.’
I felt it would be churlish of me to refuse.
