The Doctor will see you now.

Last week the RCVS decided that vets can now call themselves "Dr" if they wish. Don't get me started on what a pointless ego stroking waste of funds I think this is. The main point is - I was against it, in an eye-rolling "it's not very British" sort of fashion.

Today I was in a supermarket, and I was waylaid by a chirpy young man with an ipad who was doing a survey about all sorts of seemingly unrelated things. I think the main drive was to get your details so they can cold call you. Anyway, he was being annoyingly cheerful whilst I was feeling slightly put upon, and so when he said - "Is it Miss or Mrs?" I heard myself say "It's Doctor."
"Right, of course Doctor, sorry" he said.

Everyone loves a good power trip, but in half a second I turned into the very sort of arsehole I had been complaining about. It will be interesting to see how this pans out!

Tales of Bill

I returned from a weekend in Scotland to find my boss bleary eyed in the surgery on Monday morning. 

“Hard weekend?”

“Five bloody horses kicked each other one after the other, all needed stitched, and one was bloody mental, I gave it 50mls ketamine and it was still standing. In the end I put a rope on it, tied it's head to its feet and sat on the bugger, just bloody stitched it from there.”

I grinned and went to put the kettle on. There was always a shaggy dog story with Bill. Unlike me he didn't have to report when he was going out on a call and when he was back safely, so he could make up any story on a Monday and I couldn't say otherwise. My on-call weekends were usually fairly steady, a couple of call outs, maybe a colic would involve visiting every four hours but otherwise it was manageable the most part of the time. Speak to Bill on a Mon morning and you would think he'd been sent to a war zone.

He followed me to the kettle. 

“Went to see Marg’ret Cook yes'day, one of her granddaughters’ dogs, that bulldog thing, went for Foxy” Foxy was an old one eyed mongrel with big pointed ears that suggested German Shepherd ancestry somewhere along the line. “ She had a big rip doon her side an needed stitched up. So I went up to the house 'cause you allus get a good feed up there. Well, I goes inta the livin room and there was this coffin laid out, an wor Andy was in it! After Auwl Andra died he went tae bits an drank hissel tae death. It's taken him a coupla year like, he looked rough as hell last I saw. There was no tellin him like. So Young Andra’s in this coffin, an Foxy's lyin underneath it, an poor Ma’gret's there wi aw the family roon. And I had to knock it oot and stitch it up right under the coffin. So I flattened it an got into it wi the needle and there's this big bang ootside. An Ma’gret's sons all come back in wi the gun an say – he'll no dae that again. The granddaughter starts greetin an twistin on. Wild like.”

A stitch in time

I got a call at 7am

“Heather! It’s Willum! Blood everywhere, it won’t stop, come quick!”

I’m not at my sparkiest at that time of day, I usually consider early morning to be my lowest ebb. So it was a flap to try and get myself together and bundled into the car. I flew up the road as fast as I legally could, rattling my teeth as I battered across the potholes.  The farmer heard me grinding up the drive and came running round to fetch me. “Wild bitch jumped the fence and ripped hersin on the barbed wire, it’s running like a tap and winna stop!

Right enough, the tall dairy cow had a gash in front of her teat which had clearly torn the vein and the blood was pouring out. She was a great big German beast, a new breeding line that was starting to appear in dairy herds and gave great yields but could be a little stroppy. “Right lads – you get a halter on and tie her to the post, Davie, you get a rope on that back leg and tie it to the gate so she can’t kick me. I’ll get some stuff.” The cattle crush was the wrong shape with the holes in all the wrong place for this job. I reckoned it would be safer, quicker and easier in a pen.

I ran back to the car and came back with suture material and my operating tools. They were still getting her into the pen and trying to get a hold of her. After the wild chase across the field she was pretty full of adrenaline and difficult to handle. Eventually she was secured and I opened my toolbox. I swithered before drawing up the local anaesthetic – it tends to sting when you inject it and the cows don’t like it, but it was better than her going nuts every time I tried to get a stitch in – and this was going to take a few. I touched the needle to the skin and braced myself to push it in, but before I could she suddenly reversed, snapped the halter in half, and ran off taking the gate with her – and the farmer who was still standing on the gate. They took off down the yard leaving a strip of clean concrete where the gate scrapped the muck away, liberally splashed with scarlet blood.

I'd never seen a cow that strong. I needed back up.

I phoned one of my professors from Vet School. 

“David? It’s Heather, I’m on a farm and I need to sedate a cow to stitch her up.” “Sounds fun” he said, “No bother, give her a bit of Rompun, what strength do you have?”

“None, the boss doesn’t like it so I’ve only got Sedivet or Ketamine”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that then. Good luck!” and he hung up, leaving me standing in the yard blankly.

At that, a yell heralded the return of the bucking bronco. They had chased her down, turned her round and she was heading into the parlour at top speed. We managed to fix the gates to channel her into our normal treatment area and, after some argy bargy, into the crush. As I thought, the central upright pillar in this machine was in exactly the wrong place and every time I approached the wound I risked breaking my arm – one kick in the wrong direction and the bones would be shattered against the steel frame. “Come on lads, we need to get this leg back again”. I lassoed the foot and tied it up where I thought it would do least damage. There was nothing for it but to go for it, the blood was pumping out of her at a great rate. I threaded a needle and blindly dived into the sea of red. I felt the hot splash across my face and heard it spatter on my collar as I tried to isolate the source of the bleeding. Her foot flailed past me several times but couldn’t connect due to the rope, only flinging muck at my cheek as I turned away. Time and again I tried to bring the edges together, large clumsy stitches trying to stem the flow. And then, it slowed, dripped rather than poured, and another stitch stopped the tide. We had won. We looked at each other and laughed. I was red and brown, caked in filth with aching fingers.

“Breakfast?” they laughed

“I’m late for surgery lads, I’d better go”

“You might want a wash first.”

I did my best to scrub off the worst with a twisted old nailbrush and gritty cracked lump of Imperial Leather. When I thought I looked half presentable, I stripped, put on the clean shirt I always carried in the car, and headed down to the surgery.

“What happened to you?” said the head nurse. “You’ve got blood everywhere”.

A month later the farmer called me to say that the cow had come in for milking that morning and a huge ball of suture material had come away in his hand “like a massive spider web”. 

Vet conversations #1

I recently had a wee holiday abroad for a couple of weeks. One of the friends I was visiting said that her vet wanted to meet me, so I hung out at the vet surgery for a while then went for dinner with her and her husband. We had a great time and talked non stop for hours, whilst eating El Salvadorian food ( highly recommended). This part of our conversation stood out for me though:

Do you have any pets of your own?

Yes, I've got a dog.

How many legs does he have?

Well, he's actually got four legs.

Oh! How many eyes does he have?

There is a truth in here, that vets often take pity on the lame ducks and end up with all sorts of damaged pets. My own is sound in body in limb, but was rescued as quite a young dog. The echoes of a bad start still reverberate. 

When he arrived, all gangly legs and spotty pink nose he didn't know much about domestic life. If you sneezed, he came rushing over and stuck his nose right in your face to see what was happening. He would lick your legs dry when you came out of the shower. He was fascinated by the toilet flush and tried to discover where it went. If he was lonely, he would steal a pair of my other half's pants, take them to his bed and chew out the crotch. Over time that changed to just stealing things and sleeping on them, and then to not stealing at all.  The rug chewing stopped. The furniture climbing stopped. All the things that had us questioning whether he would ever be liveable with stopped.

These days he is a happy, well balanced boy who is very sociable and easy going. He doesn't like little white dogs, he has a girlfriend called Tess and a lurcher he chats up in the park, called Ava. His newest buddy is a working cocker spaniel who adores him and tries to get into his bed with him. They play a strange version of musical chairs, but only she knows the rules and he is left guessing. 

He has become a wonderful companion, by my side nearly 24/7, sharing in some great adventures. He is loving and gentle and very funny. He gives me a song now and then. We have very full two-way conversations, he is very vocal with his opinions. I wouldn't be without him.

That awkward moment when ....

I am examining your pet and you are distractedly stroking their head, and then somehow miss and start stroking my hand.

Not cool, guys, not cool.

Client conversations #4

    I was called out to a horse with a gash on her leg at dusk one evening. It was quite a substantial cut and was going to need several stitches, but before I could start I needed to sedate the horse and flush the wound to get it as clean as possible. I turned to the owner and issued that time honoured vet demand – 

Can I have some warm water please? She turned to her daughter and said

“What happened to the jug? You know, the jug we use for every crisis, and for making Yorkshire puddings.”

Whiteboard demos

I was explaining the problems with the way German Shepherds had been bred for the show ring to a student, and how the changing confirmation lead to sinking hocks, hip dysplasia and osteoarthritis. Some great work has been done to fix this problem, as well as genetic screening for haemophilia and eye problems.

I reckon this picture summed it up pretty well!
(you need to click on the picture to see both dogs)