Vet on the Loose

by Gillian Hick

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  MENFOLK

  Even though I had qualified as a veterinary surgeon just before the onset of the twenty-first century, life as a mixed-animal vet was still, to a large extent, dominated by men. This state of affairs didn’t particularly worry me. Like anything, it had its advantages and disadvantages, and you just had to make the most of it. It often amused me when farmers insisted on catching or holding an animal for me. I think they expected less of the ‘more delicate sex’ and, to be perfectly honest, it suited me just fine – I didn’t feel the need to prove to myself or to anyone else that I was better than any man. If it meant I had less work to do, I wasn’t going to object!

  During my student years, I had become accustomed to farmers bringing out a basin of hot water, an unopened bar of soap and a crisp, clean towel for my benefit while the male vet was expected to hose down under a cold tap. I felt I could put up with such discrimination.

  I don’t know whether it was because I was a female, or because of some half-starved look I had about me, but I rarely left any place without being offered vast quantities of refreshments, which I availed of on a regular basis.

  Of course, being female didn’t always work to my advantage; some farmers seemed to have a particular problem with the whole concept of a female vet. Even in cases where everything worked out beautifully, and I regularly saved their animals from the jaws of death, they failed to be impressed. Needless to say, if anything ever went wrong, I was the biggest waste of space ever created. But I became a thick-skinned waste of space.

  One of the most notorious offenders in this regard was a farmer by the name of Wayne McLoughlin. What made him worse was the fact that he was not only young, but also well-educated. I could forgive the ageing bachelors, who had farmed for generations while the nearest their womenfolk got to the farm was feeding the calves or the hens. Equally, I could forgive the younger hill farmers who had barely completed any formal education and lived in the few remaining remote pockets where even women going into pubs was still frowned upon. But Wayne had no such excuse. He was in his early thirties and had been reared on a progressive dairy farm. After school, he had gone to UCD and completed a degree in agricultural science. I don’t know how he had got on with his female colleagues but obviously they had left no favourable impression on him – certainly not in an academic sense anyway.

  The first time I met him, I observed a tall, powerfully built man striding across the yard with a welcoming smile. He was obviously admiring the jeep. As I opened the door and stepped out, the smile dropped from his face.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, not another bloody female vet!’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ I retorted cheerfully, ‘not another male farmer!’ My sarcasm was lost on him, however.

  ‘This is a good pedigree cow of mine. She needs a caesarean and I don’t want her messed around.’

  I’m always ready to admit that a lot of farmers have more experience than I do, but it really annoys me when I’m told what to do. Caesarean sections in cows are something that are demanded on a regular basis when somebody panics. I’ve often noticed that the most educated farmers are the most inclined to do this. But it’s not an operation to be undertaken lightly. Of course there are occasions where there is no alternative but, in many cases, with a little bit of patience in giving a young heifer a chance to get on with the job, or with a bit of careful manipulation, it can be avoided.

  I’ve always noticed that the farmers who are the most vocal in demanding a caesarean are the ones most likely to complain when the job is done and the panic over. ‘Not much of a calf, is he? A bit of a pull would have done that lad and saved us a big bill.’

  After one particularly bad call – partly my fault, but also strongly influenced by an irate farmer – I decided to rely on my own judgement in future. That way, if things went wrong, I only had myself to blame.

  * * *

  On this particular day Wayne snorted irately as I pulled on a pair of rectaling gloves and applied a liberal quantity of lubricating gel.

  ‘I’m telling you, she’s for a caesarean,’ he stated. ‘She hasn’t made any progress for the last hour and I’ve had a feel inside her.’

  ‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to have a feel for myself.’

  I thrust my hand deep into the heifer’s vagina, ignoring the impatient sighs and the eyes rolled up to heaven behind me. Although she had the narrow hip conformation of a typical Friesian heifer, she was relatively roomy in relation to the size of the calf. I was fairly confident that I could calve her without too much of a pull.

  ‘I think we’ll get it out with the jack,’ I informed the disbelieving Wayne. ‘There’s no point in putting a good heifer through a section unnecessarily.’

  ‘This is bloody ridiculous. I’m telling you, you’ll damage her with the jack. Are you trying to tell me I don’t know my own bloody job?’

  ‘No. In fact, you’re trying to tell me I don’t know mine,’ I replied calmly. ‘I’m not sectioning this heifer.’

  ‘This is unbelievable. Well, on your head be it. Your boss will be hearing about this when it goes wrong.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I muttered to myself as I took the calving ropes out of their container.

  The job took just fifteen minutes, most of which time was spent in relaxing the heifer and allowing her own contractions to deliver the calf with a little bit of help from the jack. The bull calf shook his head in surprise at his undignified entry into a strange new world. I was delighted as the heifer began to sniff at the ungainly little creature with a look of bewilderment. She was none the worse for wear.

  ‘You were bloody lucky this time,’ was the only comment from Wayne.

  During all future calls I did at McLoughlin’s, nothing ever went wrong. It was one of those rare yards where, no matter what I did, it seemed to work. Yet Wayne always insisted on berating my best efforts and I continually had to put up with his ‘bloody female vet!’ comments.

  I usually tried to avoid the yard, but one morning I scanned down the list of jobs in the office and saw a call to W. McLoughlin, Ashford, to castrate a young bull. Arthur had scribbled his name beside it, indicating that he would do it. When he came in, I turned to him.

  ‘Listen, I see you have your name down for McLoughlin’s, but I’ll be out that way testing just beforehand so I might as well do it to save you the drive.’

  ‘If you would, that’d be great. I’ve those two horses to vet out in McDonald’s and a mare to scan on the way back. It would really take the pressure off me. I just didn’t want to put you down for it because I know he isn’t exactly your favourite client.’

  ‘Ah, just think how much it will make me appreciate all the others then,’ I replied grimly.

  * * *

  ‘I thought Arthur was coming out.’

  I hadn’t expected any niceties from Wayne. None of the usual casual chat about the weather or the rate of the grass growth. ‘No, he was too busy. You’ll have to do with me instead, but don’t worry, it’s a simple little job. Two quick snips and it’s all over. I’m sure even a female vet can manage that.’

  ‘Well, this bull is going for sale in three weeks so I don’t want him going back on me. Have you ever done one of these before?’

  ‘Oh believe me, I’ve done plenty – many more than you could ever imagine!’

  He glared at me. A sense of humour was not one of his strong points.

  In fairness, in terms of equipment, Wayne was always well set up and I was glad to notice the strong crush containing my patient. The bull didn’t look like the type you would mess around with. I fervently hoped that he wouldn’t guess my intentions.

  He glared malevolently at me with an expression he might have borrowed from his owner, as I sedated him. While I waited for the sedation to take effect, I carefully scrubbed and disinfected the surgical site. Having injected him with antibiotics and anti-tetanus, I then drew up a measure of local anaesthetic to inject into both
testicles.

  ‘Now, get a good hold of the tail, please. This might sting a bit.’ I enjoyed watching Wayne wincing as the bull snorted in reaction to my administrations.

  Normally the time spent waiting for the anaesthetic to work is passed in idle chat with the farmers – not so with Wayne, but I wasn’t going to let him away with it this time. I’d had enough of his sullen silences.

  ‘Isn’t this a really beautiful piece of craftsmanship?’ I began as I unwrapped the emasculators which we used to crush the vessel supplying the testicles. ‘Look at the way all five jaws lock so perfectly into each other. There’s no way any self-respecting testicle could overcome that.’

  Wayne shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. Like many supposedly tough farmers, he took pride in his total lack of squeamishness, but a threat to one’s manhood was a different matter, especially from a no-hoper female.

  ‘You know, it’s one of the most expensive instruments we have,’ I continued conversationally, ‘but it’s worth every penny. It does such an efficient job. I always feel it’s a job well done.’

  ‘Do you think you could just get on with it? I haven’t all day to waste.’ I noticed his tone had lost some of its usual arrogance despite his gruff words.

  ‘Oh, absolutely, if you’d prefer. It’s just that normally, I like to give plenty of time for the anaesthetic to work. It must be so horrifically painful. But no, you’re right. We don’t want to stand around all day. I’m sure he’ll get over it.’

  I noticed Wayne’s firm hold on the tail weaken slightly as I slashed a long incision deep into each testicle. I’m not really cruel by nature and honestly, the bull didn’t feel a thing as I had, in fact, given ample time for the local anaesthetic to take effect. The testicles dropped neatly out of their containing sack, suspended by the thick vasculature of a mature bull. Wayne was beginning to look a bit ashen-faced by this stage in the proceedings.

  ‘You wouldn’t be embarrassed to own those!’ I said cheerfully, but got no reply.

  ‘Now for the fun part,’ I said viciously. I opened wide the jaws of the gleaming emasculators and placed them carefully around the vast blood-supply. With great enthusiasm, I closed the enormous jaws and enjoyed the loud crunch, followed by a gentle thud as the offending article dropped harmlessly to the ground, having been severed by the final blade.

  I opened my mouth to give further encouragement to my assistant only to be interrupted by a much louder thump. I turned and saw that Wayne had slumped gracelessly to the ground. For a second, I considered propping him up in the recovery position but on reflection decided that I really couldn’t be bothered. I felt slightly disappointed that the show was now over.

  I tied the bull’s tail up to the side bar of the crush, rescrubbed and continued with the job without my audience. By the time I had finished, Wayne had come round and managed to scramble to his feet. He made a few attempts to bend over, as though searching for whatever he was pretending he had dropped on the ground, but he knew I wasn’t convinced. He returned my sympathetic smile with a menacing scowl that somehow didn’t carry the same impact as usual, given how pale he now looked. He didn’t open his mouth again, and I left the yard grinning happily, satisfied with another job well done.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  AN UNUSUAL CASE

  And then there were the glorious days; the days that you replayed over and over again in your mind to convince yourself that, one day, you just might become a worthy member of the veterinary profession, after all. The fact that the success was due to a combination of good fortune and being in the right place at the right time, became totally irrelevant.

  It didn’t seem like it was shaping up to be one of those days when I stepped out of the shower that morning to find eleven missed calls on the phone. I pulled a towel around me before listening to a garbled message about a bleeding horse, collapsed in a stable. As is often the case in an emergency, the owner of the voice had neglected to leave me such vaguely useful information as his name or telephone number. I was briefly grateful to Eircom as I hit the last-caller button. The phone was answered on the first ring.

  ‘He’s down in the box and there’s blood everywhere and he’s in an awful bad way. How soon can you get here?’

  I patiently extracted the relevant information as I wondered if I had by any chance missed the opening part of the conversation.

  I felt out of breath myself by the time I hung up but I still wasn’t terribly concerned. A bleeding horse invariably looks worse than it really is to an owner and I felt confident enough about having to deal with a simple stitch-up job. I mentally prepared myself for the soothing talk with the client, the carefully administered sedative to the trembling horse, the thorough flushing of the injury, and I was almost congratulating myself on the neat row of sutures by the time I pulled into the yard. Stepping out of the jeep, I pulled on a warm jacket as, seemingly overnight, summer had given way to autumn and the ground was covered in a crisp frost.

  Owen O’Malley was a hefty man and he looked all of his eighteen stone as he puffed down from the stables to meet me.

  ‘I thought you’d got lost,’ he said. ‘Archie is out of a Clover Hill mare. He won the heavy hunter class in the RDS this year and I’ve a good buyer waiting for him as soon as he passes the vet. No chance of that now – even if you can save him,’ he added ominously.

  I tried not to look smug as I followed him up the uneven ground to the row of immaculate loose-boxes, anticipating how good I was going to look when Archie was sound and ready for sale in a week’s time. But my confidence quickly evaporated as the narrow ray of light that illuminated the dark box revealed a handsome hunter lying pathetically on the fresh bed of straw. Before I could stop him, Owen went in and grabbed hold of the head-collar.

  ‘Get up, Archie. Come on, get up,’ he implored the horse, pulling until the horse’s head and neck were up off the ground. As soon as he let the head-collar go, Archie slumped lifelessly back on to the straw.

  An ice-cold shudder shot up my spine as I realised this was no ordinary cut horse. Without realising that I was holding my breath, I followed the fresh blood on the straw to the site of the wound and then stopped, perplexed. A ragged gash was visible, just above the fetlock, under a mass of blood-stained hair, but things just didn’t add up. The cut, while significant in its own way, could not possibly account for the animal’s collapsed state. For once, my old college lecturer’s much repeated addendum of ‘common things are common’ just didn’t ring true.

  As is usual when I have absolutely no idea what to say, I busied myself with a careful examination of the heart and lungs to give me some time to think.

  ‘He must have bled all night,’ said Owen, interrupting my frenzied thought. ‘I found him up the top field and he was so weak that I only just about managed to get him down to the box before he collapsed on me. There can’t be any blood left in him, at all.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Owen,’ I replied, feeling as though my voice was coming from a long distance away. ‘It’s not a bad cut at all and that amount of blood loss shouldn’t worry a cat never mind a great big animal like him. And look at this!’ I exclaimed, as I pulled up Archie’s top lip to reveal a congested, mucky-looking mucous membrane. ‘There’s more going on here than just a simple cut, Owen. I just don’t know what to make of him. I really don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think you can stitch him then?’ he replied, completely missing the point. I carefully auscultated the abdomen, listening expectantly for the intermittent grumbling and trickling that would assure me all was well. I tapped carefully on the head of the stethoscope, thinking it wasn’t working right, as all I could hear was the dull, sluggish leaking of an unenthusiastic gut. Not your usual colic, I thought to myself, but a sure sign that something was amiss. I leaned up against the wall of the stable, with my hands to my head, wondering what on earth was going on, and stared blankly at the limp animal. His shallow, measured breathing was definitely not that o
f the typical colicky horse, which would be writhing and thrashing in pain.

  I stood there for God knows how long, gazing cluelessly into the horse’s glazed eye. As I watched, he carelessly stretched his neck and pulled out a wisp of hay from the pile that lay in the corner of the box. The silence was broken only by his methodical chomping. I was puzzled. How could an animal, so obviously ill, be interested in food? And that was when it started to come to me, like a light beginning to dawn on a far horizon. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain I recalled a similar situation – a lifeless horse but with the same wistful chewing of hay. And looking back to my patient, I could see there were other similarities. Archie was not in any pain. In fact, if I were to hazard a guess, I would go so far as to say he was quite relaxed. In fact, even a bit mellow. I stared at the vacant expression on the horse, noted again his regular, shallow breathing and looked back at the mucky colour of his membranes, and then in one fantastic instant, it all made sense.

  ‘Owen,’ I said, ‘the field you took him out of. Were there any wild mushrooms in it?’

  Many years previously, while ‘seeing practice’, the vet I had been accompanying had come across a case on a frosty October morning where two horses were found stretched out in a field, unable to rise and obviously dying, but with no obvious cause. Although, at the time, I had no idea quite what was going on, I vividly remembered the day spent in vain, sending off samples for analysis and treating the horses symptomatically until the next morning when they both gave up the battle and died. As far as I knew, the real cause of death was never confirmed by any laboratory but a similar spate of cases had occurred within the same week, and all within a clearly defined area. The only logical explanation was that, following specific seasonal conditions, a certain type of mushroom had grown and, after the short spell of frost which always preceded these cases, the mushroom in question became palatable to horses. This then gave rise to multiple cases, over a couple of days, of what was assumed to be mushroom poisoning. All through my college years I tried to find out more about this condition, but not once did I come across a single reference to it. Now, here I was, working in the same area where those cases had occurred and I was fully convinced that what I was dealing with was indeed a case of mushroom poisoning.