Vet Among the Pigeons (8 page)

I
t wasn’t the first time I had been up to McFadden’s and the call this afternoon suited me just perfectly. It had been a busy morning, testing cattle in an
inadequate
yard with a rare type of unsociable farmer and I was in need of a bit of genuine hospitality and goodwill to restore my faith in the clients.

Even driving along the winding road up through the hills did much to cheer my spirit. Tom and Mary Mc Fadden were born into farming and despite the ongoing modernisation all around them, the yard itself had changed little since they had first taken it over. Although they now bought in hay from local contractors, the only tractor that ever ripped across the small but
well-maintained
fields would be one of a neighbour. George, the donkey, was solely responsible for manure removal and spreading, for loading hay and drawing grain, and the hundred and one other tasks that were always to be done around the admittedly small and uneconomic farm.

When I first met the couple, I was enchanted by Tom, with his well-weathered face and twinkling eyes, and by Mary, with her inherent strength that came from a life of physical toil. Nonetheless, I was concerned about
introducing
myself into a farm where time had stood still. I wondered how they would accept the modern medicines and methods that had become routine in the life of a vet. But my worry was needless. On my first visit, I had been called out to dehorn cattle, a task which, despite my usual misgivings, went relatively well. As I pulled out the
embryotomy
wire to saw off the immature horns, Mary, especially, was fascinated.

‘Well, I never,’ she declared, ‘it’s just like the
old-fashioned
cheese cutter my mother used to use.’

The description stuck and every time I appeared, I would hear the familiar cry of ‘Tom, come on out. It’s the vet with the cheese cutter!’ followed by much mirth and merriment all around.

Despite their acceptance of modernisation, Tom and Mary had chosen not to invest in new ways, knowing that their meagre small-holding would not support much expensive investment. However, after my first few visits, I came to admire the rude good health of their collection of suckler cows, horned sheep, the single sow and the bewildering array of fowl that always seemed to be underfoot. The lack of pressure of the modern yard allowed them the luxury of attention to detail and the priceless tender loving care which seemed to have been lost in bigger more ‘efficient’ holdings.

My patient today was a large, horned ewe, known to the
department as IE 42-509121 610, which I noted down for the clinical records, but, to Tom and Mary, she was known quite simply as Edel (‘She was the fifth lamb out of Patricia – always just a single ewe lamb she had,’ confided Mary, making me wonder yet again about the convoluted
traceability
schemes dreamed up by those in the know).

Edel, like her mother before her, I was told, had carried on the tradition of always having a single ewe lamb. This was her first time to require veterinary attention and as I inserted a carefully lubricated hand into her vagina, I
realised
why. Although she was a big ewe for her breed, the pair of cloven hooves that lay, side by side in the vaginal passage, seemed more suited to a large, roomy Texel. I was just about able to get my hand far back enough to feel the tip of the nose, all perfectly aligned and in normal presentation, but I knew without a doubt that there was no way this lamb would be delivered in the normal fashion. Tom and Mary waited anxiously as I squeezed hard between the digits of the hoof to ascertain if the lamb was still alive. Eventually, I felt the reflex jerk, as the leg pulled back assuring me that, at least for the moment, all was well with the lamb.

A caesarean is a relatively expensive option, especially on a small hill farm, but I had a good feeling, even before I discussed the options, that Edel’s guardians would want to give it a go.

In a few minutes, the operation table was prepared and Edel lay, carefully restrained by Tom’s huge and capable hands, on a bed of golden straw. Having prepared the
surgical
site, I injected local anaesthetic into the skin and
underlying muscle, where I would make my incision. We chatted for a few minutes as I continued to scrub the site while waiting for the area to be numbed. Once I was happy that Edel had no feeling, I incised the taut skin, stained brown from the disinfectant with which I had
carefully
scrubbed her flank. The combined smells of the
surgical
spirit and the clear, fresh air around us made the place smell as clean as any sterile theatre. Once through the muscle layers, it wasn’t difficult to locate the glistening uterus as it seemed to take up the entire abdomen. Within minutes, I had located the joint of the hind leg of the lamb, but I had to extend my usual incision within the uterus to allow for the enormous, well-filled rump of the lamb to pull through. Apart from being covered in placental fluid, with the give-away floppy ears still clinging to the head, the lamb was so big he could have been mistaken for a two-month-old. By the time I had finished stitching the rapidly contracting uterus, he was up on his feet and
butting
hard at his mother who encouraged him with a
deep-throated
voice, accepting all.

‘Well, that’s a first for the family,’ said Tom, gently
tossing
the heavyweight upside-down. ‘That’s the first ram lamb in that line for two generations.’

‘But still only the single as always,’ added Mary.

Reluctantly declining the offer of a cup of tea, I was soon scrubbed and packed. As I drove away, I was delighted to see mother and lamb settling down for a good feed, although Gulliver (promptly named after the giant in
Gulliver’s Travels
) almost had to stoop to reach his mother’s udder.

Although prior to Gulliver’s dramatic entrance I hadn’t visited the Mc Fadden’s in many months, as usual, bad luck comes in threes. It was only two weeks before I was to return, this time to a collapsed suckler. The long,
winding
road held no charm for me today as, in the race against time, it seemed to get longer with each twist and bend. The history of the cow worried me. ‘She’s a scrawny little one,’ Tom had told me over the phone. ‘She had her calf there a while back and hasn’t picked up too well since. I thought she was a bit stiff in herself yesterday, but she seemed agitated when I tried to have a look at her. I found her down this morning, over beyond the gorse bushes. I don’t know if I’ll manage it, but if ye like I can go up with the dog and try and get her up and into the shed for you,’ he added eagerly.

‘Thanks, Tom, but no. Not this time,’ I assured him. ‘Leave her where she is until I get there.’

As we made our way slowly up the hill against the biting cold wind, I could see where she lay, her limbs paddling, with the sod worn off under her. A quick listen to the booming, rapid heartbeat confirmed my suspicions of grass tetany – a metabolic condition where the magnesium levels in the body drop, resulting in the collapse and
neurological
signs that lay before me. The problem with
treating
an animal in this condition was that any stress or excitement could trigger a seizure and instant death.

The first thing to do was to sedate her, so I drew up a small volume of sedative and slipping the needle into the vein, I depressed the plunger. Gradually, the laboured breathing of the cow became more relaxed and even.

Now I felt a little more confident and fitted the bottle of magnesium to the flutter valve and inserted the wide-bore needle under the skin. I flicked at the value and watched as the air bubbled up into the familiar brown bottle.

With the stethoscope in my ears, I carefully auscultated the heart, waiting for the familiar pattern to return. By the time the bottle had drained in and I was ready to add a bottle of calcium, this time directly into the vein, the tips of my finger had become numb and I fumbled to find the vein in the thickened, hairy groove. The cow moaned slightly and I stood up holding the bottle as high as the flutter valve would allow, speeding up the flow. As I was bending down again to recheck the heart, from behind the bush, I could see two lambs capering around the hill
seemingly
oblivious to the near Arctic conditions. A distinctive black patch over the flank assured me that the larger of the two was Gulliver, but it was hard to believe that he was only two weeks old.

‘He’s as fine a lamb as you’d ever see, isn’t he, Tom?’ I said, turning to face my companion who was wiping at the stream of tears that were whipped from his eyes by the wind, forming a thin trickle down his face.

‘There’s no doubt about that,’ he replied. ‘But what do ye think of the one beside him?’

In contrast to Gulliver, his playmate was not much to look at. The tiny lamb looked no more than a few days old and was poorly built. I was surprised at Tom drawing my attention to her, but didn’t want to offend him,
knowing
how attached he and Mary were to their stock.

‘A bit of sunshine on her back and she’ll come on
nicely,’ I replied, carefully, and wondered why my response caused Tom to break out in wheezy laugh as the stream of tears down his face thickened.

Before long I was happy that the cow was on the mend and we padded her up well with thickets of gorse to prop her into sternal position to allow her to get up more easily when the sedative had worn off.

Making our way back down the hill, Tom kept erupting into half-coughing, half-laughing fits and nodding his head wisely. I began to wonder if old age and harsh conditions were beginning to take their toll.

Mary had obviously spotted us making our way down the steep hill and was waiting at the back door to greet us.

‘How’s Bella?’ she called out while we were still quite a distance away. A thumbs-up sign from me brought a smile of relief and she hurried back into the kitchen again. By the time I had packed my gear away in the car and come into the kitchen for a wash, the table was set with a pot of tea and hot scones.

‘And I won’t take no for an answer this time,’ she told me firmly. Despite her dainty stature, I didn’t dare argue.

Although the couple seemed in good form, in fact almost giddy at times, I felt that something strange was going on.

By the second scone, Mary burst out, obviously no longer able to contain herself, ‘Well, what did you make of the twins up there?’

‘The twins?’ I enquired, puzzled, wondering which ones they was talking about.

‘Gulliver and Lilly,’ she said. ‘I saw you looking at them up there.’

‘Well, I was just saying to Tom what a fine lamb Gulliver is, but who does Lilly belong to?’

‘Lilly is Gulliver’s little sister,’ cried Tom, triumphantly.

I stared at them both blankly, wondering what had come over them. Although it was not uncommon for a lamb from a ewe with multiple lambs to be fostered onto a ewe with a single, they surely wouldn’t have fostered it onto Edel with a big lump like Gulliver to feed.

At this stage, the couple were falling around the table, in uncontrolled mirth, breaking up laughing every time they looked at my confused face.

‘It was such a fine day, the day Gulliver arrived, that we decided to let himself and Edel out with the others,’ began Tom, pausing to catch his breath every now and again. ‘The next morning, I went out with George to feed them and down trotted Edel with Gulliver close behind. Well, I thought I was seeing things,’ he continued, warming to the tale, ‘because by the look of him he had six legs. When he got closer though, I was able to see that two of the legs belonged to a little speck of a lamb and while Edel was having her nuts, there the two of them were, feeding away from her, one on either side, like Little an Large.’

I stared at them in open-mouthed amazement. ‘And where did she come from?’ I asked stupidly, hoping I had missed a part of the story

‘Well, Edel was the last due to lamb. Apart from the few hoggets in the far pen, all the rest had lambed. Sure, the poor little bugger must have been in there all along and
watched the brother being pulled out and wondered what the hell was going on when you stitched her up again!’

My face must have gone deathly white as realisation dawned on me exactly what had happened before Mary quickly intervened.

‘But sure, not to worry,’ she cried, in obvious glee at the story. ‘She was that tiny she slipped out the usual way, not a bother on her.’

Despite their obvious enjoyment of the story, I couldn’t really share it with them. My mind was filled with horror, thinking back to the caesarean and my amazement at the size of the lamb and the unbroken history of a single, and wondering had I really not carried out the usual
examination
around the uterus to check for a second or even a third?

‘But maybe,’ I stammered, ‘well, maybe, could one of the smaller hoggets have been in lamb and had it without you knowing?’

‘Well, I suppose it’s possible,’ considered Tom, ‘although I didn’t see any signs of it.’

‘And she always was a bossy ewe, Edel,’ carried on Mary. ‘She’d be just the one to decide the youngsters
weren’t
doing it right and take over.’

And to this day, we don’t know. Did Edel break the trend and have twin lambs, one with my help and the other despite my hindrance, or did she take a fancy to an inexperienced hogget’s lamb?

A
s usual, the week had rolled around to
Wednesday
night before I knew it, and I prepared myself for the weekly Blue Cross onslaught. At quarter to five I was sitting in a comfortable armchair trying to remind myself why I did it. The clients would have another good hour before they would have to get ready to go out in the fierce winds and the dark rain that I couldn't ignore, no matter how hard I tried, beating against the window. Not for the first time I wondered why the Blue Cross couldn't expand to having a clinic in Wicklow.

One look at my bag was enough for Molly to break into an agonised wail. ‘Mammy, make sick doggies better – Monny coming too!'

‘No, Molly stay and mind Sluggie,' I reassured her firmly. I was having more success with the Maltesers I placed in her sticky fist, and feeling totally unrepentant of the buy-off.

Slug drooled hopefully, waiting for the inevitable titbit.

The journey seemed to go in slow motion as I shivered despite the thin trickle of heat I allowed myself in the car – no point in warming up too much.

Surely on such a night there won't be a big crowd, I
consoled
myself, in a vain attempt at self-delusion. And a
delusion
it was. From the far side of the roundabout I could see the assortment of teenagers with puppies, and old men with old dogs and young women with shivering children and somewhere in their midst an equally shivering pet.

I noticed a forlorn-looking budgie hopping miserably from one perch to the next, despairing at the variety of natural predators that surrounded him.

‘Right, let the budgie in first,' I called above the din, ignoring the good-humoured protest that broke out.

‘So, what seems to be the problem?' I enquired of the equally bedraggled young girl, clutching the cage as though her life depended on it.

‘Ah nuttin', Doc. I just brought 'im for ye to have a look at 'im.'

I looked at her closely, trying to see if she was winding me up, but the big innocent eyes gazing up trustingly at me gave nothing away.

Gently, I tried to explain to her how such tiny birds have fairly delicate hearts and that even my handling him could be enough to make him keel over. ‘Budgies don't like any change – he hates that wind and rain, so get him home and cover his cage with a large towel and keep him quiet for the rest of the night,' I finished, praying to God that the little creature wouldn't be belly-up by that stage.  

‘Yeah, I know all dat, Doc,' she called back over her shoulder as Eamon carefully ushered her down the big steps, ‘but de ye
like
'im?'

I tried not to catch Gordon's eye as the crowd surged through the open door.

Soon I was in the thick of it – clients pushing in from both doors – examining one patient while shouting
medication
doses to Gordon for the previous case. My
stethoscope
hung idly by, to be used only when absolutely necessary; no self-respecting stethoscope could even hope to pick up on any pathology over the constant roar of the evening traffic, mulled together with the wails and squawks and roars of the assorted assembly of animal life with which we were surrounded.

Nearing the end of the first hour, I felt we were making progress until I glanced out into the tiny waiting area and my eyes were drawn to the most ominous of all signs: a man with a pillowcase on his lap.

Over the next vomiting kitten and Jack Russell for suture removal, I tried to push the image of that pillowcase to the back of my mind, but as the terrier jumped happily off the table into the arms of her owner, there it was – the pillowcase – dumped unceremoniously in front of me.

The pretty pink floral borders did nothing to fool me. For as long as I could, I put off the moment, trying to judge from the thick bulk of the contents just how bad it could be.

‘A four-and-a-half-foot boa constrictor,' declared the man proudly as I hesitatingly enquired.

A gasp of breath came from behind me as a young woman, clutching a scrawny kitten and desperately trying
to grasp the hands of her assortment of toddlers, shot out the door and, with a resounding slam, we were on our own – myself, the man, and the four-and-a-half-foot boa constrictor.

‘Need a hand?' enquired Eamon, poking a head in the door.

‘Emm, yeah. Sure. Come on in,' I answered, feeling in need of some moral support if nothing else.

The man seemed oblivious to my discomfort. ‘A real beauty he is,' he began, his hand delving in among the pink printed flowers.

The reptilian smell assailed me before I even saw the head darting out, inquisitively flicking its forked tongue, assessing the situation.

‘A real beauty,' he repeated, offering the muscular trunk towards me as I involuntarily stepped back almost falling into the press behind me, the pointed head a little too close for comfort.

‘So, em, what exactly seems to be the problem, then?' I enquired, hastily pulling on a rare pair of disposable gloves and reminding myself of the oath in which we swore to care for all creatures, slithery or not!

Oblivious to the still considerable crowd outside,
Freddie
enthusiastically launched into the tale of how a mate of his had bought this snake from a pet shop, despite the fact that his wife wasn't keen on it. Apparently, one evening, the snake had escaped from its enclosure and while the non-reptile-fancying wife was taking a bath, she spied the tail-end of it coiled neatly behind the toilet bowl.

‘Well, jeepers, me mate said ye'd want te have heard the
roars outa her. She wouldn't have yer man in the house after that,' he finished, nodding towards the mottled reptile winding its way up his arm.

‘Strange that,' I murmured faintly, feeling deep
sympathy
for the unfortunate woman.

‘So, he's just in for a check-up then?' I implored
hopefully
, wondering if I could conceivably go through the motions of examining the creature without touching it, even through Latex-lined hands.

‘Well no, luv,' he replied, dashing all hopes. ‘I've had the bugger for about two weeks now and 'e hasn't eaten at all. I've offered 'im the best of grub – got a few live chicks an' all – wouldn't look at them.'

I shuddered, imagining myself as the luckless chick.

Frantically, I racked my brains wondering how often a four-and-a-half-foot boa constrictor should eat. Two weeks did seem a bit long, but not totally famine-length either.

From my vantage point, the creature's scales did seem to be a bit dry and lifeless, but there was nothing lifeless about the rest of it as, with remarkable speed and agility, he slithered around Freddie's body, coiling and wrapping as best he knew.

‘Well, maybe he's taking a bit of time settling into his new environment?' I began, buying myself a bit of time. ‘He does look a bit dehydrated and, with the stress of the move, he's not shedding his coat properly,' I continued, feeling a little more confident that this ordeal would come to an end soon. ‘What I would do is give him a bath in lukewarm water every second day to rehydrate him and
syringe a bit of this into him after it,' I replied, scribbling down the name of a reptile food supplement which would be available in the pet shop.

‘That should get him back on his feet,' I concluded, missing the point that he didn't have any, and now frantic to conclude the consultation.

Freddie seemed happy enough with that. ‘Right, luv. I'll do that so and, sure, if he's not eating I'll bring 'im back to ye again.'

I mumbled something that was not quite confirmatory but was feeling that I had got away lightly. Thankfully, I pulled off the still-clean pair of gloves, but Freddie turned back towards me and as an afterthought added, ‘But are ye sure he 'asn't gotta touch o' mouth rot?' he said, thrusting the serpentine head towards mine. For an instant our eyes locked in mutual distrust before I recovered enough to pull myself away.

‘Well, eh, I don't really think so,' I said cautiously as though X-ray specks were allowing me to examine the content of the mouth that was firmly latched shut.

‘Would ye like me te open 'is mouth for ye?'

Maybe it was finally beginning to dawn on Freddie that I wasn't as enamoured of his ‘beauty' as he was.

‘Yes, good idea, so,' I blustered. ‘I wouldn't like to frighten him.'

I studiously ignored Eamon's amused raised eyebrow as, taking a deep breath, I managed to peer into the gaping, one hundred and eighty degree jaws that were presented to me. Feeling a bit like that poor chick in its final moments, I could see clearly enough that the mouth
area was thankfully clear of infections that would require my intervention.

‘Perfect, perfect,' I assured Freddie, hastily opening the door for the next client as he coiled his companion back into the floral print pillowcase.

Three or four clients had passed through before I could swallow without a gulp and the skin on the back of my neck stopped feeling quite so clammy.

‘Was tha' a snake ye had in de bag?' asked one
enthusiastic
young lad. ‘Deadly. Bleedin' deadly!' he said when I confirmed that it was.

‘Yeah … deadly,' I agreed, shuddering again.

On the long drive home I kept getting a shivery feeling down my spine and I did have a quick peek around the interior of the car before I got in. That night, I kept the duvet well wrapped around me, making sure there were no cracks and when Molly woke for her usual bottle, instead of running across the hall in my bare feet, I put on a pair of heavy duty slippers … just in case.

The following Wednesday night came and went and although there was the usual assortment of life, there were no pink pillowcases. I breathed a sigh of relief when the last fluffy kitten had left.

I had all but forgotten my ordeal when, two weeks later, just as we were finishing up well beyond the
allocated
time as usual, Eamon called after me, ‘Hang on a sec, there's someone after getting off that bus. Will we wait for them?'

‘Oh all right, so,' I replied grudgingly, wondering who else would have arrived by the time we dealt with this one.

‘What is it?' I called out the door, wondering what I needed to unpack.

Silence.

Eamon sounded sheepish when he came back in. ‘Are you sure you want to look at his one? We are well over time. We could always get him to come back next week or he could even go to Walkinstown tomorrow night. I'll be on that clinic myself and I'm sure we could look after him there.'

I eyed him suspiciously – Eamon wasn't usually prone to rambling, long night or not.

‘Sure, it'll only take us a minute, Eamon. Call him in there.'

It struck me just before I saw it, this time not in a pink but in a yellow pillowcase, adorned with fluffy teddy bears. The beauty was back.

I flinched, as with a thump, the encased body hit the table.

‘No joy, luv. No joy at all,' declared Freddie gloomily.

I couldn't but agree with him.

‘We didn't see you last week. I assumed all was well,' I said with forced enthusiasm.

‘Nah, I tried to get over to ye but the bleedin' bus was late and by the time I got here yiz were gone.'

‘Well, the clinic is only meant to be from seven to eight,' pointed out Gordon, looking at his watch which showed that it was now looming dangerously close to nine. ‘You're lucky that we're still here at all – we should be sitting down in front of our fires by now.'

‘Ah thanks, lads,' Freddie replied automatically. ‘It's jus'
tha' he hasn't eaten at all since the last time and I've been doing me best, I have. Gave 'im a wash like yiz said.'

Despite myself, I felt sorry for the creature as Freddie pulled it out of the bag. The previously thick, muscular trunk looked gaunt and saggy and the skin was thickly scaled and dry. Even his movements were weak and
listless
, and he was apparently uninterested in his fate, as his head hung, barely level with the rest of his body. He was clearly a very sick snake and far beyond my feeble attempts at this stage. With a sense of relief, and knowing I was doing the right thing, I told Freddie that a referral to an exotics clinic was the only answer at this stage.

A long conversation ensued during which Freddie related his saga of how he had no means of transport to get across to the far side of the city and being on welfare he couldn't afford to pay much, and sure, anyway, the missus was getting fed up with the snake in the sitting room. After almost two hours at the clinic, my powers of persuasion were at their lowest ebb and with a sense of doom, I could feel what was coming next.

By quarter past nine, Freddie was gone and only the teddy-bear pillowcase remained behind, complete with my new in-patient. Beauty or not, Freddie had baled out.

Much and all as I feared the beast, I couldn't bring myself to put him to sleep. I wasn't concerned about
getting
a home for him as there are lots of people who like this kind of pet; but getting him better was going to be more difficult, plus the more immediate problem of what to do with him tonight.

Gordon and Eamon didn't even allow me to air my
brainwave that perhaps one of them would like a new pet.

‘No, no,' Gordon assured me. ‘What he needs now is a nice drive in the country. Nothing like a bit of fresh air to work up an appetite!'

The pair of them erupted into laughter at my desolate face.

I tried to bargain with myself, using all my logic. My phobia for snakes was ridiculous – pure childhood
prejudice
. Maybe this was my chance to break it. Maybe, in caring for this seriously ill animal, I would begin to bond with the species and get a better feel for them. Really, it was an excellent opportunity for me.

I wasn't convinced, but there was no other option and anyway, I told myself, he's so sick what harm can he do?