Client Conversations #15

Okay, well if we can't touch him, you can't get a muzzle on him, and he won't let anyone into the room then we'll have to sedate him. We'll mix a load of drugs with cat food and stick it through the door.

"He'll no eat that"

Why not? 

"He's a dog."

Client Conversations #14

 Hello, I was wondering if I could get an appointment tonight for you to microwave my cat?

Microchip. She meant microchip.

What stress?

 It was a chaotic and stressful day. An op turned up that was booked as just an appointment on the diary, meaning that we hadn’t allocated the time properly and would be pushed to get everything done by evening surgery. An emergency had called in and needed seen right away - fortunately it didn’t need anything extensive and was quickly resolved, but that was another 20mins taken out of the day. Every dog had managed to poo in its kennel, then dance around in it a bit. The feral cat was so frightened and aggressive that when we approached the wire basket he was in, he pee’d himself whilst scrabbling around, spraying the nurse liberally. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when the last procedure started to go wrong. After a little sedation to take the edge off I had scooped him up and carried him to the theatre, which was when I noticed his abdomen was tight like a drum. Immediately I went into emergency mode, called in an off duty nurse to help, informed the owner and got him knocked fully out. When dogs begin to bloat up, it kinks the pipe into the stomach so they become unable to burp, exacerbating the problem. If the stomach twists, it becomes really serious very quickly as it both cuts off the blood supply to the stomach wall, but also the grossly distended organ puts pressure on the main vein returning blood from the back half of the body, causing circulatory collapse and death. 

I started a general anaesthetic, placed the biggest endotracheal tube I could into his windpipe, measured out what length of stomach tube I would need and fed the thick walled pipe down his throat. I knew I had hit the jackpot when a huge hiss of stinking gas hosed out of the tube, and he deflated in seconds. I stood back and smoothed my forehead, sharply aware of how close he had come to disaster. 

We got on with his scheduled investigation, removed the tubes and lifted him to a padded area on the floor to recover. Looking down at my hands, I realised that there were streaks of blood up my hands and arms. 

“Where’s he bleeding from!?” I squeaked, having visions of having torn his oesophagus with the stomach tube. “I lubed it up, I was so careful! Where is it?!” His mouth was clean. His fur was clean. His IV cannula was clean and dry. I rocked back onto my haunches, and Angela looked up at me. 

“It’s you” she said. 

“What?”

“It’s you. Your nose is bleeding”

Client Conversations #13

 “He’s got ain o’ they Isis.”

“Eh? What, like the Taliban?”

“No! Well, yes, but in ‘is eye!”

“Wait, what? Ohhhhhh - do you mean an eye cyst?”

“Yes! Isis!”

Foalings, Fears and Flunixin

     "It’s an awkward one Heather, I’m so sorry to bother you with this on a Sunday and all, and it’s not even my horse, but you know the field that faces onto my Grandma’s house? Where the trotter ponies get tethered? Well there’s this mare in there, she’s foaled but she’s still down, nobody is looking at her, and it looks really bad. Can you come?"

     I logged the call with Bill – every time I went out I let my boss know where I was going, then phoned in when I got back. It made it easier to trace me if I disappeared, and a tiny bit safer as a lone female driving a car full of drugs around remote locations. “£140” he said. “Cash”. I then called one of the local travellers to find out who’s horse it was. He promised to “send a lad up, hinny”, and I set off with some trepidation.

    I got to the field gate at the same time as a pick-up truck with two burly travellers inside and the lad Johnnie had promised in the back, a quiet skinny 17 year old with a wispy moustache who would never look at me but always at the ground to the left of my boots, whilst almost whispering the answers to any questions sent his way. They said he was a demon for the drink.

     We bumped across the grass in convoy and pulled up alongside her prostrate body. The turf was roughed up into furrows where she had been kicking out, struggling to give birth to the foal which lay behind her in a tangle of limbs. He was alive, but a bit cold and slow. The young lad set to work with the foal, coaxing it and rubbing it with his coat which he had taken off to dry it and get it going. The other two stood nearby and stared at me.

“Reet naa, whit ye ganna dae wi thissun then?”

     I tried to look confident, and started talking through the exam as I was performing it. The mare was soaked with foamy sweat, her eyes rolling with fear and exhaustion. She had passed the placenta and it looked intact as far as I could see, so that was a good start. I couldn’t see any signs of bleeding. There were no vaginal tears on exam. But she was pretty done, unable to lift her head, gums darker than they should be, a very sickly animal. Her heart rate was much faster than normal. She didn’t respond to our attempts to get her up.

     “It’s a bad do guys, I can give her a couple of jabs to see if we can rouse her, but I’m really concerned she’s going toxic.”

“Dunno lass, if you give her a jab I’m paying for a jab, then she doesn’t mekk it and it’s a reet waste o a jab an my bloody money like. Mebbes we should just pit ‘er doon. Ah wish ah’d brought us gun wi us.”

At that, another 4x4 appeared at the gate and trundled down towards us. I looked over at the guys in askance.

“Me mates”

     They parked behind my car and another three men got out of the vehicle, one carrying a rifle. I tried not to show any fear – now there were six guys and one gun surrounding me, blocking in my car. They started to discuss whether they should let me give the horse an injection or just kill it. I struggled to keep up with the debate, whether on purpose or not I’m not sure, but I wasn’t able to follow much of the heavy dialect and cant. Eventually they turned back to me.

“Give er a chance, pet. But if it doesn’t work….”

     I went back to my truck and selected three bottles with very little idea of whether they would help or not. I opted to give her some heavy pain relief, some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and a hormone to help her along. I raised her jugular vein, sank the needle through her skin until I hit the flash of red, then gently pushed the drugs into the vein. Sliding the needle back out, I put a little pressure on the site and gave it a rub to stop the bruising. I leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Come on, old girl”.

     I had turned back towards the car to dispose of the needle when a yell went up behind me. She was thrashing her hooves in the air, nostrils flared. Two of the men ran downhill of her on the steel slope, pushed their shoulders into her side and dug their heels into the ground, tipping her feet back to the soil. She dipped her head and with an almighty heave, leapt to her feet.

“Bloody hell, Vitnery! What’s in them jab? Can I has one?”

     The mare stood for a few seconds, catching her balance, then tossed her head, shaking out her mane. She shivered all over a couple of times, then stepped over to her foal. She nuzzled the newborn and gave a soft deep whinny.

“Get her a drink please, guys.” I said. Johhnie’s lad produced a bucket from the back of the pick up and tripped off to the water trough.

“Ah’ve never seen owt like that! You’ve done us a bloody good job there, hinny. What’ll y’be wanting fer that then?”

“Cash?”

“Wey aye, man”

I pretended to tot up the drugs in my head, counting on my fingers for a second before confidently stating “£150”

He went into his jeans pocket and pulled out a doorstop roll of cash, peeled off two £50 notes, two £20’s and a £10.

The water bucket came back, and the mare took a long slow drink.

I checked her again, and her heart rate was down a bit, her colour ever so slightly pinker. It was time to go see the boss and hand over the cash.

“Watch her tonight lads, any bother just give me a shout alright? Now then, I’d better get on, can you shift the truck and let me out please?” They looked at each other slyly with a question in their eyes for a second and I felt the deep spike of fear, but they broke into smiles and one stepped forward and moved the 4x4.

     I pitched up at Bill’s proudly producing the £150, and he was so pleased that he handed the extra tenner back saying “Danger money” with a sideways grin.

Merlin

     I was standing in the prep room washing my hands when a chunky Springer Spaniel pushed his way through the door and against my knees, stuck his nose in the air and looked up adoringly at me, his whole neck pressed against my leg. I dropped my hand to tickle his ears and he nearly knocked himself over by wagging his tail furiously. Merlin had arrived. Having completed his rounds of saying hello to everybody he ran away back through to his owner in the waiting room. I followed him and we all went into the consult room, Merlin first. It was a pattern we followed every visit.

     As I leaned over to have a look at him I saw that he had blood all over his feet. His owner saw me start and said
“When we went in to his kennel just now there was a big pool of blood with big clots in it. I took him out for a pee and it was just straight blood.”
     Right enough when I looked at him the source of the blood was his penis – he had pee’d so much blood he was splashing about in it. I checked his prostate but couldn’t feel any problems there, and his gums were still nice and pink with a slightly slow return to normal when I pressed my thumb against them to make them blanche. He certainly didn’t seem ill, he was full of beans. I lifted him up on to the examination table and felt his belly. His secret was revealed – a tumour the size of a large orange at his bladder. It must have burst into the bladder itself, and now he was slowly bleeding to death through it.

     Here was a tough decision. The chances of successfully removing the cancerous tissue and saving him were small and he was getting on a bit; it was a big op for an old guy. I would desperately have loved to be able to pull off a miracle for this most beloved of patients, but we had to be realistic – Merlin wasn’t going to make it. His owner didn’t want to put him through the invasive surgery. They couldn’t face the prospect of taking him home overnight and so we all agreed that the only way forward was to put him to sleep today, now. His owner was devastated, fat tears slipping off her nose and chin, dripping to the floor.

     I tried to get IV access, but as his blood pressure was dropping, his peripheral blood vessels were constricting to keep the blood flow to his core tissues preserved. On top of that the wriggling and waggling didn’t give us a stationary target. I made the decision to sedate him so he wouldn’t know what was going on and wouldn’t be distressed in any way. A mid range dose and ten minutes wait had him floppy and snoring on the floor. “Come on, son” I said, “let’s get you up on the table”. Despite his sedation, his tail started wagging at the sound of my voice. He was otherwise unresponsive, but every time I spoke to him, his tail thumped against the tabletop.

     Talking to him all the way I slipped the needle in, and delivered the fatal dose. His tail wagged and wagged and wag… and stopped. His owner howled in pain. She hugged him, then threw her arms around me, quivering with grief. And then she turned on her heel and burst out the room, out of the practice and out into the dark.

     I bent and kissed him on top of his head, pressed my face into his neck, and allowed the silent heaving sobs that I had been holding back to be released.

A Swift Exit

     There is a short season every year where we get birds handed in that people have found on the ground. For most fledglings it’s normal to leave the nest a couple of days before they can actually fly, but not swallows, swifts or house martins. They will sometimes accidentally find themselves on the ground and not be able to get airborne again, particularly the swifts. These amazing feathered arrowheads nest in the eaves of houses mostly, so to start flying they use a bit of gravity from two stories up. That option isn’t available when you find yourself on somebody’s driveway. 

     I particularly enjoy getting a chance to see them up close rather than overhead at nearly 70mph. Not only that, I can fix most of them by dropping them out of an upstairs window- now that’s my kind of medicine!

     One day I was checking over a swift that a client had brought down, stretching out its wings to look for breaks or scuffs, checking the flight feathers were intact, when suddenly I saw a massive spider like insect dart across the skin under the feathers.

     Now I’m not notably jumpy, but it was everything I could do not to slam dunk the bird on the floor and run away screaming. This was the stuff of horror films. A large, very fast biting beastie millimeters from my fingers.

     I returned the swift to a quiet kennel, trying all the time not to scratch, and went to look up what this could be. 

     I discovered that swifts have a type of flat fly that is similar to a louse, but bigger and faster. It doesn’t touch humans, so I had nothing to fear, although when it is running at you it’s pretty scary. Crataerina pallida does not have many friends. Birds are usually infected in their parents nest, and will then carry the parasites for life; they are too quick to be caught and killed. They can literally suck a young swift to death, which may be the reason our bird had ended up on the ground in the first place. I steeled myself – it had to be done.

Crataerina pallida - very fast, very horrible. Tiny wings. 

     I got a pair of curved artery forceps and a latex glove. Wearing the glove on my left hand and brandishing my weapon in my right, I picked up the wee bird and started the hunt. I caught sight of the beastie but it shimmied away at lightening speed and hid under the wing. But I was determined – the bugs had to go. I managed to swoop in just as it was away to climb round onto the swift’s back, and caught it by one leg. It was enough to dislodge it and dispatch the parasite. I went back in for more. I took three in total off this tiny sleek bird, and felt quite triumphant. It was window time.

     One of the nurses stood in the car park with a washing basket, ready to receive in case it still wasn’t able to fly. They were not very convinced by my assertion that all we had to do now was chuck it out the window. Nevertheless, they trusted me enough to let my try it. Or maybe they just trusted their own catching skills.
     With a shout of one, two….three! I launched the wee guy out of the second story window. For a sickening moment he tumbled towards the tarmac, then righted himself, swooped low to the ground, built up some speed and lifted himself, disappearing over the roof of the neighbour’s house like a pocket rocket. The nurse gave an audible “ooh!”. 

Satisfied with a happy resolution, we wandered off towards the kettle, another case cured.

House Martin just before curing by window.

    

"Helping"

It's very important to me that the nurses don't get all the crappy jobs whilst the vets swan off to do something less grotty, so I've always tried to muck in with the floor cleaning, pee mopping and assorted stinky jobs. 

Unfortunately I'm just not that good at it.... 

...here's a message I was sent by one of the nurses

When you don't know what's wrong...

......investigate everything

Awkward mistakes

     I stuck my head around the consult room door and saw one of my memorable clients, a short neat gentleman in his 80’s in a greying shirt and maroon tie, navy bib and brace overalls with the hems turned up, a navy workman’s jacket, and a great big pair of shining black tackety boots. He wore a tweed cap, perched slightly askew, not far above his glasses. He could have been Fred Dibnah’s brother, one of the many elderly engineers and coal miners we served in our little Northumbrian practice. When he was thinking about something, he was would compulsively take his cap off and put it back on again, over and over. He kept a pack of quite big but very well behaved dogs in tow despite his advanced years. He was still working, gardening for “old ladies”

I could see he had his new German Shepherd pup with him whom I had given it’s first vaccine two weeks ago. It was time for the second injection. 

“Adolf!” I shouted joyfully. No response. I tried again, a bit more tentatively. “Adolf?”.
Who, me? said Mr Elliot. “That’s not iss name, pet”.
“But you told me a fortnight ago – a German name for a German Shepherd”

“Aye hinny, that’s reet. Hans. His name is Hans”

I think we'd better get an x-ray

Do you think it could be broken, doctor?

Erm......

...yeah I'd say so.

FMD, a recurrent nightmare.

       We arrived at the end of the farm road and were greeted by the farmer. His face was working in quiet fury under his own black cloud and he was carrying a gun. 

“You should have been here a week ago, what the bloody hell’s the point of coming now? It’s too bloody late now!”

       I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I was keen not to agitate him any further. I was there as the peacekeeper, still a student but experienced at working with British farmers, unlike the Australian small animal vet who was supposedly in charge of today’s blood testing. Foot and Mouth Disease had been spreading like a forest fire down this Cumbrian valley. We were ahead of it here, checking that the sheep and cattle on this farm were “clean”- they hadn’t met the disease yet. Every farm in the county was getting tested. Vets were pulled in from all over the world, every available UK vet student was there, and a huge number of non-clinical staff of various types, from military to admin to cleaners and quartermasters. It was a massive operation. The British vet students from a farming background were widely used both for their clinical skills and to smooth the way, chatting to farmers and translating for the international vets in a host of languages. Even the vets with good English struggled to understand the broad accents of the farmers. 

       As we packed our crates of equipment into his Toyota Land Cruiser, Farmer Jim expanded on his frustrations. The farm just up the road had fallen victim to the disease a few days ago, but was far enough away to fall outside the 1 km contiguous cull zone. Jim was berating the Ministry of Agriculture for having not jumped ahead of the disease and created a firebreak. He reckoned it was almost certainly going to cost him his stock, and all the farms downwind from him too. 

       Once we were in the farmyard, proper introductions were made, as well as a pot of tea. Jim’s wife Moira was a wide, friendly lady with muscular arms, big square glasses and an open smile, despite the strain she was clearly under. A tray of mugs appeared, one of which was half filled with sugar, and a small milk jug. We had a brew and started to learn a little about the farm. The cattle we had passed on the way in were curious looking beasts, not quite one thing or another. I asked Jim if they were a local breed. He told me that they had been specially bred over the last 180 years by his ancestors on the farm to specifically suit the ground they had there. They were large bodied powerful beef cattle, but with quite short stocky legs that helped them negotiate the uneven turf and wade through the stony river that carved up the fields here. Jim softened considerably once he realised I was genuinely interested in his stock, and it wasn’t just some government trick.

“Nine generations, father and son” he said. “These cattle are our lives, our way of life for hundreds of years. And now what? Some bugger has pissed it up the wall for us?”

       The stock we needed to test were scattered all over the farm, so we were loaded into the back of a dubious looking Diahatsu Fourtrack, which was then locked from the outside with a padlock. Taking a seat on the bare metal wheel arch, I realized that there was a dog guard between us in the load space and the two seats at the front. We were trapped.

       Moira took the wheel and we set off down a steep and very bumpy farm track, every jolt causing great discomfort. I tried not to yip when a particularly big pothole threw me up in the air for a second, only to crash back down on the exposed metal, bruising my tailbone. It was away to get worse. The cattle were on the other side of the river; there was no bridge, and no visible ford. Moira kept up a stream of commentary and chatter as she plunged the tiny 4x4 into the flow and drove downstream. Half way across the water began to pour into the back of the car where I was locked in and sweating. I could feel the current pushing on the wing. After what seemed like an age, we reached the edge and started to mount the impossibly steep bank, tipping the back of the vehicle further into the water and making us lift our feet up in the air to avoid the rising tide. With an almighty heave we were clear and pulled up beside a huge bull. He lazily raised his head to the window, and Mary reached out and scratched him, first on the forelock, then under the chin. Our duty with the cows was to look for salivation or lameness, but none was evident, both Billy Bull and all his girlfriends seemed to be in good health. After slowly wandering around the riverside checking each beast we headed up the fell to check on the sheep.

       The sheep were part of a larger regional plan; we were to blood test as many as we could, the numbers all carefully and proportionately worked out by the epidemiologists. The sheepdogs went to work, and we rested in the cool breeze whilst they gathered the flock to us. Our uniform was two boiler suits with hoods up, waterproof coat, waterproof trousers, two pairs of gloves with cuffs tucked into the sleeves, wellington boots (tucked in), and protective eye goggles. We were to leave as little skin exposed as possible. It was August and we got very hot, very quickly.

       Sheep all rounded up, we kicked into action. This was my area, take a blood sample from each ewe as quickly as possible causing as little distress as we could, quickly check the mouth then release them. I had been working with the same team for a while, so we had it down to a fine art and the farmers appreciated our skill. It wasn’t long into our inspection before we started noticing blisters in the mouth. I called the vet over. We turned the ewes on their back, and at the top of the hoof in the cleft between the two toes, there it was again, small pale blisters with a reddened ring around them. The thermometer confirmed it – the affected ewes were running a temperature. The mood changed instantly. We called for back up.

       We silently headed back to the farmhouse to wait. Moira cracked out the sloe gin for everyone and Jim hit the whisky. There was tea and home baking, sobbing and ham sandwiches. We only waited an hour and a half for the reinforcements to arrive, but it was a very long time.

       It was confirmed that evening when a second team came out to join us and agreed: with two qualified vet opinions, the flock had Foot and Mouth Disease. The only option was an immediate cull. The farmers were angry and hurt, we were trying to stay calm and professional but were heavy of heart.

       We left them to come to terms with the news and headed home to base. There were lorries full of citric acid waiting at the gate to powerwash us from head to toe including vehicles, and the police were posted at the end of the drive to stop anyone else coming in or out. I drove back to Carlisle, arriving too late for any food, and got drunk.

By 6am I was back at the farm.

       I spent more of the day talking to the farmers than I did handling the animals. A few times I snuck off alone and cried. I tried to keep them busy inside whilst the shooting was going on, hundreds of sheep killed in the silage clamp pit with a captive bolt gun, the pop pop popping of the guns ricocheting around the concrete walls for 20 minutes non-stop. The cattle had succumbed to the virus overnight. The big gentle bull was unable to walk back to the yard and thick trails of drool hung from his mouth where the skin of his tongue had started to slough. Most of them were shot where they stood by a marksman – one second there, then gone, they didn’t know a thing about it. The sucklers around the farm with calves were penned inside the shed in groups of four, and stunned with a captive bolt gun before being dispatched, then dragged out to the yard by a chain around the leg attached to a tractor.

       After hours of brutal killing, silence fell. Then, after a moment, the engines roared to life as bodies were loaded into wagons to be removed for incineration. Cart after cart trundled away down the track, stopping for disinfection at three separate points.

       I stayed for tea with the family to make sure they were safe, and then it was time to leave. I shook Jim’s hand, and he fell against my shoulder sobbing, face scarlet, hot tears dripping into my neck. Moira hugged me, and wouldn’t let go. When she eventually released me, I walked back to my car to the sound of her shouting her phone number across the yard at me. I tried not to let them see me falling apart with every step.

       I went through the three disinfection points and police cordon, and drove back to Carlisle. I got very drunk, but couldn’t drink away the pain.

       I still get a Christmas card every year

Kitty bank

This is possibly the most expensive 20p I have ever handled

Client Conversations #12

I ever so gently lifted the injured cat out of the basket and placed him on the table.
“Hello Mateusz, how are you today? I heard you are not feeling good, poor puss cat, tell me all about it, hmm?”

“He only speak Polish.”

Client Conversations #11

“I’m sorry to say it but Bailey is starting to get a little bit chunky, I think it would be worth getting a little bit of weight off him”

“It’s Trump’s fault”

Client Conversations #10

Working in an affluent area sometimes turns up some unexpected responses.

Discharging a patient from the hospital, this was the conversation with our tweed wearing client:

“ He’s really starting to struggle now, his blood protein is very low. We need to get some nice, easy to digest, good quality protein into him – cottage cheese, egg or chicken are all good ways of doing that.”

“Pheasant?”

Willum's cleansing

     I was up at Willum’s farm doing some routine dairy work, the main job that morning was a cleansing. This is a particularly foul task. Once a cow has calved and the calf is up and about, she then pushes out the placenta, which has become detached. This normally happens less than 8 hours after calving, although it can be up to 24hours. Usually she will then eat the lot. It’s a useful evolutionary device – less smelly bloody mess about for the wolves to track you, and it’s a lot of good nutrition that would be a shame to waste. Sometimes after calving, the placenta does not come away and remains attached to the womb, especially if the birth was difficult or the cow has a metabolic issue. This is called retained foetal membranes. It leaves the cow with a load of tissue without a blood supply hanging from her vulva. Over the next few days, it starts to decompose, and the smell is pretty horrific. 

     At the time, the recommendation was to allow the tissue to rot for a few days to soften it up, then remove as much as possible without actively tugging or causing trauma to the uterus, and following it up with a hearty dose of antibiotics. This has been a staple of the rural vet’s workload for a hundred years and more. The recommendation now is that manual removal of the retained membranes is contraindicated – don’t do it, just snip off the worst of it, leave the rest alone and it will sort itself out in time. Unless the cow is sick, she doesn’t even get antibiotics. 

     But this was back then, when we were still removing the rotting membranes from inside cows, and that was what Willum had summoned me to do this morning. He greeted me enthusiastically, grinning and giggling from the start.

“I’ve got a right ripe one for you here, kept it special for you like”

“Aye, thanks for that, you’re a pal”

     He walked a quiet Holstein Friesian into the handling area. She was a bonny cow, classic black and white markings, soft eyes, slavery nose and chin, and a deep lowing moo when you talked to her. There was a long twisted rope of flesh hanging out of her back end, flapping around her hocks. It smelled pretty bad from a distance.

“I’ve been letting it cook for a few days, get it good an ready!”

     I donned two shoulder length plastic gloves on my right arm to protect me from both the bacteria and the smell. Rubbing some lubricant on my gloved arm, I handed Willum the manky tail to hold and pushed my hand in through the vagina and up into the uterus. Immediately a hot splash of foetid liquid poured out, spattering on my boots as I gagged and retched. Willum fell about laughing.

“You know Willum, you could do this yourself, you don’t need to be paying me to do it.”

“Are you joking, man? This is the best laugh ah get aal week, it’s priceless watching you an ya wee screwed up face hurling all ower the place. I wouldna miss it for the world!”

“You’re a real bastard, you know that?” I was assaulted by another wave of hot putrid decomposing flesh, and it was all I could do to hang on to my breakfast whilst clutching the handful of membrane I had secured. I eased it off the uterine wall, removed it, flung it on the floor and went back for more. I was very high up the womb now and was reaching for something at my very fingertips, my face and body pressed up against her rump as I stretched for an extra inch when suddenly she farted and shot a full stream of faeces directly into the side of my face and down my neck, inside my waterproofs. Willum collapsed to the ground and let go of the tail, which whipped me around the face. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t even stand up to help me. My lips were clamped shut, desperately trying to keep the muck out of my mouth. My ear was full of hot cowshit. I brought my left hand up and used the side of my finger to scrape everything clear of my mouth so I could breathe. Willum, dying of mirth managed to pass me a handful of paper towel, tears rolling down his cheeks, gasping for air between guffaws of laughter. I rubbed the worst off my face, still inside the cow up to my shoulder.

     “You Bastard.” I was not impressed, which made it even funnier for him. He was trying to apologise, but still weak with laughter I could barely hear him wheezing out “Sorry, but…”

     I finished up as quickly as possible and stood dejectedly in the yard. It was only lunchtime and I was filthy. Willum’s mother came out from the house, over to where we were standing.

“You’d better come in for a clean up and a bit o dinner, you’ve earned your bait the day lass!”

     I kept a spare shirt in the car, so I put away my kit, stripped off as much as modesty allowed into a mucky pile on the ground behind the car, and headed into the house. The bathroom was basic and pretty ancient. There was brown shaggy carpet on the floor with a crusty path worn through it, a freestanding bath and a chipped pink sink boasting a sliver of gritty soap. I took off the rest of my filthy clothes and set to work trying to clean myself up as best I could. The soap was Cusson’s Imperial Leather, an old cracked impenetrable bar with sand wedged deep into the seams on the fissured surface. It was about 40% label, that rigid square they set into the branded bars. It wouldn’t lather in the hard water. I dried myself with a stiff, scratchy towel and put on my fresh shirt. I thought I looked okay given the circumstances. I gave my hand a quick test sniff and recoiled in horror. My whole arm was stinking. 

     I felt better after a proper cooked lunch; knowing how awful the job was going to be they had even made me some trifle. After a bit of joshing over the table, I made my way back to the surgery. 

     The nurses immediately threw me out the building; despite a full change of clothes and repeated scrubbings with surgical soap my warm skin was releasing the aroma of dead rotting flesh. I had muck stuck in the folds of my ear, and a smear of blood through my eyebrow that I had somehow missed. But I also wore a smile, because for all the hardships and mishaps, the gruelling work and truly awful smells, farm work has always filled me with joy.

Chainsaw Massacre

This is what it looks like when your patient decides to chew the IV drip line running into their paw, then tries to shake the bandage off. This is their in-patient record which was clipped to the front of the kennel. They also chewed the corner of the paper.

(The patient made a full recovery, despite their best efforts)

Client Conversations #9

"I'm not sure if it's a boy or a girl, I don't know how you sex them. I've always had older rescue cats before. I tried to find out, I went online and Googled "sex kittens". I won't do that again!"

Every pet deserves a chance

     “You know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate, but no-one will help him and his fish will die. Is there anything you could do?” 

     I took a long slow breath. “Okay, I can’t promise anything, it’s really not my area, but I can talk to him. Text me his number and I’ll call in the morning”. I hung up with a feeling of doom. I always worry when personal and work life collide. My soft hearted mate was lobbying on behalf of a friend of his who was a Koi carp enthusiast. He had spent all his spare time and money investing in special ponds and filtration systems to look after a handful of these friendly big fish. Now one of them was sick, and he couldn’t find a vet to treat them. His local vets all gave him the brush off saying they don’t treat fish. The fish vets out on the coast wanted to charge him an arm and a leg to do a full inspection including travel cost, full day consultation fee plus drugs, running to hundreds of pounds. They weren’t able to find that much cash at short notice having maxed out on setting up the facilities. He was getting desperate, and with every set back the infection was gaining ground, untreated for longer. 

     “Hello is that Paul? I’m Ranjit’s friend, Heather the Vet. He says you’ve got a problem you need a hand with? “

     Over the course of the next 10 minutes Paul told me all about his fish, not in abstract terms but as individual characters who had likes and dislikes, different personalities. He was clearly besotted. He had been caring for Koi for 8 years, learning as much as he could and giving them the best life possible. But now his favourite, Big Momma was sick. A minor scrape on her side had become infected and was spreading rapidly, killing off the scales on that side, affecting the muscle and causing pain and suffering. I didn’t want to get involved, but neither did anybody else and I wasn’t going to let this animal suffer just because it was inconvenient. His final sign off clinched the deal:

“She’s my favourite fish and we love her very much. Please help us?”

     In order to legally diagnose, treat and prescribe for Big Momma I had to officially register the fish as being under my care. We started by getting as many details as possible – the basics like name and address, then moving on to fish names, lengths, ages and weights. I needed as much information as possible. Next I wanted to see the lesions on Big Mommas side to assess the damage and also to chart progress. I asked for a set of photographs to be taken. Whilst I waited for Paul to email me with all the information I needed I did a little research about the best treatment for problems like this. I was delighted to discover that the most effective (and crucially, licensed) treatment is a relatively common drug that I had sitting on the shelf. All I had to do was dispense a five day course of antibiotic at 14milligrams per kilo of fish, and supply the equipment to inject the fish once daily.

     My phone pinged; Paul’s email had arrived and I could see the problem myself for the first time. The poor girl had an extensive infection causing necrosis of the skin and loss of scales. The raw flesh underneath was poking out. Based on the measurements I worked out the appropriate dose and ran to the post office – this fish needed the drugs by tomorrow or it might be too late. 

The infection spreading

     Over the following week I checked in regularly to see how Big Momma was getting on, and for days she seemed to stay the same – no spreading infection but not getting better either. And then, suddenly, a shift. The dead scales were still getting pushed out but instead of raw flesh underneath there was healthy granulation tissue. She was fighting back, making a scar.

The infection stopped, dead tissue sloughing and nice white scars forming

     It took two weeks of daily care, cleaning the wound , removing all the dead tissue and giving an injection of antibiotics, but I was delighted to receive an email telling me that Big Momma was back to normal, the scar was healing and she was eating and wanting tickled again. It was an odd one for me, but very rewarding, and for Paul and Big Momma it meant the world.