Vet Among the Pigeons

by Gillian Hick

  It seemed like I had only slept for half an hour when I became conscious of a tiny, solemn face staring intently at me from the bedside.

  ‘Go back to bed, Molly. It’s the middle of the night,’ I muttered, hopefully.

  It wasn’t until I rolled over and saw that Donal’s side of the bed was empty that I realised he had already left for work and it was now after seven.

  Willing my eyes to open, I peered out at Molly. Happy that I was going to wake up she thrust her two arms towards me, clutching something in her hands.

  ‘Have pussycat, Mammy!’ she declared, opening her tiny fists to reveal the tiny tabby creature inside.

  With a gasp of horror I sat upright, and made to take the kitten from her. Quickly, she closed her hands back over him and with the utter commitment of a two-year-old, said ‘No, Monny mind him!’

  Pulling her and her tiny charge up into the bed with me, I sat and watched as she cuddled the little bundle into her, and with a gentleness surprising for a toddler, settled the kitten carefully into the folds of her fleecy pyjamas. Within seconds, the kitten’s mewing subsided as he snuggled close into his minder.

  Leaving her in the bed, I went back to the bathroom to check on the rest of the patients and was glad to see that Sophie, oblivious of the kidnapping that had taken place, was sitting up, still looking ill, but a little pit perkier than the previous night.

  With Fiona now awake, I fed and changed her while Molly took charge of her ‘babies’. When it was time for me to go to work, a tiny tear trickled down her face as I relieved her of the patients. It was only the promise that I would bring them all back that evening that enabled me to get away at all.

  Down at the surgery, I was relieved to see that Seamus was going to be occupied for the entire morning with a big herd test. Other than that, there wasn’t too much else on for the morning.

  I quickly set up the operating table and once all was ready, attached a syringe containing the anaesthetic to the intravenous line. Sophie didn’t budge as I depressed the plunger, but gradually her breathing became smooth and regular and her eyes took on a glassy appearance. It took longer than usual to clip and prep the scrawny little cat as her fur was matted with the putrid discharge. Once she was clean, I covered her with a sterilised drape and within minutes was making my first incision. Underneath the skin, the muscle was clearly visible, with little subcutaneous tissue to obscure my view. Picking up the midline with a forceps, I incised a tiny hole with the tip of my scalpel blade. Once through the gleaming peritoneum, I edged the tips of a surgical scissors into the opening and extended the wound until the problem was clearly visible. The uterus, five days after delivery, should be almost back to its own size. In Sophie’s case, however, one horn still contained a long-since dead kitten. While one occasionally does have to remove dead kittens that are too big, or in the wrong position to be delivered normally, in Sophie’s case it was something a little bit different. The uterus was partially obscured from view by the mesentery that connects all the organs in the abdomen. This tissue, usually white and glistening, was inflamed and angry-looking. Prising the damaged tissue carefully away from the horn of the uterus, it became all too clear why the body had reacted so violently. The smooth, glistening surface of the enlarged uterus was interrupted by a sharp object protruding out from the inside. Carefully, I incised over the mass to reveal another dead kitten, one that had died many weeks ago and become mummified in the once sterile environment of the uterus.

  While the soft tissue had withered away, only the tiny bones remained. In attempting to deliver the tiny foetus, Sophie’s contractions had forced the sharpened edges out through the wall, rupturing the uterus. Glancing at the shallow but regular breathing, I marvelled at how she had functioned as well as she had, considering the pathology inside. The natural attempt of the body to heal the damage by covering it with protective tissue had clearly failed. Thankful that Sophie was a small cat and not a large, overweight Labrador, I quickly set to the task of removing the uterus. Even if Sophie had been a prize pedigree, her breeding days were clearly now over. It was a relief to remove the distorted uterus knowing that she would never again have to go through the same ordeal.

  Before the first call of the morning arrived in, I was placing the final row of sutures and admiring how a small, neat incision could hide what lay underneath.

  While I was waiting for Sophie to recover from the anaesthetic, I fed the kittens again with some carefully mixed commercial kitten formula. When they were both content, I placed them in beside their mother under the heat lamp, bundling the entire family up within a fleecy rug. Before long, Sophie was sitting up groggily and then she turned to stare at her charges. Within minutes, she settled down to licking them as though nothing untoward had happened.

  Between calls, I managed to feed the kittens a few times over the day, knowing that Sophie’s milk supply would be scant. By the time I was ready to go home that afternoon, Sophie was a different cat, purring loudly and arching her back when petted, which reassured me that she was feeling little, if any, pain.

  Remembering my promise to Molly, I packed the trio back into the car and, with Slug sulking in the back, made my way home. That evening, as I fed Fiona, Molly fed her charges, becoming remarkably adept at nudging the tiny feeding bottle into the opened mouths. Gently, she crooned a tuneless lullaby as she sat, legs sticking straight out off the couch, each kitten wrapped in a tiny doll’s blanket. Sophie, obviously well used to children, seemed to be quite happy with the arrangement, and jumped up and down every few minutes to check on the progress.

  ‘Her likes me,’ declared Molly, pointing her chubby finger in the direction of Sophie.

  By the next morning, mother and kittens were making a remarkable recovery. Despite being so underweight, Sophie, freed of her damaged organ, exuded the vitality of a street cat.

  By the weekend, her milk was beginning to return significantly and Molly was slightly put out as the kitten chose to return to its mother. It was only then, having spoken to Sandra over the phone, that the problem of returning the little family to their rightful owners arose. Sandra, living some forty miles away, had no form of transport and there was no public service of any sort that came near us. Molly was clearly pleased when we decided that the simplest thing would be for them to stay with us for the week, to be returned the following Wednesday at the next clinic.

  Knowing well that the usual handful of Maltesers that I used to bribe Molly to let me go to Ballyfermot wouldn’t work this time, I made a quick detour by the toyshop on my way home from work on Tuesday. As though waiting for me, on the first shelf I saw a pink, glittering package, containing a mother cat and a kitten, complete with a tiny feeding bottle.

  On the Wednesday evening, with the feline family packed to go, I handed Molly the parcel.

  ‘That’s a present from Sophie,’ I told her, ‘to thank you for minding her so well.’

  Sophie was soon returned to her rightful owners and I didn’t hear anything until the following week when she returned to have her stitches out. Her coat was noticeably sleeker and the two kittens were almost unrecognisable as they had developed from scrawny ‘rats’ to rounded bundles of chocolate-box fluff.

  Along with the cats, Sandra had brought a photograph of the happy family for Molly, which Molly insisted on putting in the photograph album alongside Fiona’s christening photographs!

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  NOT BAD FOR A FIVER!

  Life as a veterinary surgeon, or at least the way in which I practise it, seems, at times, to create a sense of a split personality. Within any single day, I can go from treating some valuable equine, worth (at least in their owner’s mind) a significant number of thousand euro, to a stray puppy with no pedigree to his name. Likewise, the owners can span from those with a mouthful of letters after their names to a welfare client that signed the consent form with an undistinguished X. The skill required in the morning might be nothing more than to vaccinate a fluffy kitten, wh
ile the afternoon could be spent wrestling with a few tonnes of hefty bovines. It often amuses me, having spent a morning wallowing in blood and muck among a bunch a fractious cattle, to step out of the overalls and into the car and drive away, humming along to some soothing melody on Lyric radio. In my pre-children days, the journey home might take in the gym for a quick swim and a sauna. The unfortunate fellow-sauna users would also be deceived by the split personality, imagining me as an office worker, grabbing a few moments’ peace on the way home, but it would take only a few minutes for the heat of the sauna to release the ingrained scent of bovine that would gradually begin to permeate the confined space. I would close my eyes and lie back so as not to laugh as everyone would start to look around at each other, wondering which of the usual collection of overweight males was the most likely offender!

  Wednesday nights added that bit of variety to what was already a varied routine. Donal envied the unpredictability in comparison to his own work where a set job was done on a set day all year through.

  ‘Anything interesting tonight?’ he would ask as I arrived back after another busy Wednesday night clinic. The irony was that I often had to think hard to remember even one or two cases that had passed through, such was the frenzied speed of probably one of the busiest Blue Cross clinics in the county.

  This particular night, however, I could well remember Derek, one of the regulars who had arrived with his nondescript ‘pub terrier’. Monty was well used to the clinic and was usually totally unfazed by the roadside waiting room, crowded with a selection of terriers and mongrels and hissing, spitting felines, all jostling for space. I had often tended not only to his own cuts and bruises from his encounters with the local canines, but more commonly to those he inflicted on others. In general, Monty usually came out best, partly but not solely due to his owner’s total refusal to even consider having him neutered. The first time I suggested it the look of shock, pain and disbelief in Monty’s owner’s eyes made me add, ‘It’s not you we want to neuter, just your dog!’

  Tonight, however, as soon as I stepped down from the van, I noticed that Monty seemed a bit subdued. He stood, with all four legs well apart, back-arched, head down, concentrating hard as he carefully breathed slow, shallow breaths. I was concerned that he didn’t seem to be taking any notice of his comrades even when the black and white pit-bull beside him seemed to be shaping up for a fight. Monty just stood, with his tail down, staring intently at the ground.

  Unfortunately, his place in the queue meant that it was almost eight-thirty before he was finally carried him up the steps to the van.

  Monty gave a little groan as Derek let him down on the table.

  ‘What’s up with Monty?’ I asked, with genuine concern, as my hands gently probed his tense, enlarged abdomen.

  ‘Don’t know, luv,’ replied Derek, looking equally concerned. ‘Came home from work and me Missis says ’e was lied up in the corner of de box all day.’

  The swollen abdomen was rock solid, so solid that I was initially unable to determine the cause.

  ‘Would you know if he passed any urine at all today?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, as I says, I wuz workin’ meself bu’ now dat ye sez it, ’e wasn’t peeing outside – ye know de way ’e always does be pissing on ev’ry lamp post wit’ all dem udder dogs around.’

  As though to confirm my suspicion, Monty stretched down and began to lick frantically at the inflamed penis that emerged from the swollen sheath.

  Although the usual cause of blocked bladders are stones formed in the urine, the swelling in the soft tissue suggested a more traumatic cause.

  ‘Any chance he could have been hit by a car or anything?’ I asked before giving my worrying diagnosis.

  ‘No way, Doc,’ he confirmed. ‘The Missus does be dat terrified of de Mont chasing after another dog dat she won’t let ’im out.’

  I always felt awkward with the next question but it had to be broached. ‘Any chance he could have got a kick?’ I asked, although knowing Derek and how much he cared for his dog, I wasn’t thinking of him.

  The look of horror on his face was genuine. ‘Ah sure, Doc, who’d kick ’im? D’ye tink some un kicked ’im?’ he asked in fury, all in the same breath. ‘By God, I’ll kill the little bleedin’ bollix dat dit it. Who d’ye tink kicked ’im?’ he roared at me, getting more agitated as he spoke.

  ‘No. I didn’t say anyone kicked him at all, Derek,’ I said, trying to calm him and knowing that the conversation was leading us no nearer to treating the dog. Monty moaned softly again and I decided that relieving his discomfort was more important at the moment than worrying about the underlying cause.

  By now, Eamon and Gordon were clearly intrigued, knowing well from their years of experience that something unusual was going on.

  ‘The problem is,’ I explained to Derek, ‘that this swelling here has caused a blockage, so he can’t pee anymore.’

  Derek looked stumped for a moment. ‘So ’ow does he get it out, den?’

  ‘If he can’t pass urine, it all stays in the bladder. You see the way he’s so swollen here,’ I said, indicating the turgid abdomen. ‘The bladder can hold a huge volume of water if it has to. In Monty’s case, I would guess that he probably hasn’t been able to pass water all day and it’s all building up inside him.’

  ‘So what do ye do den, Doc?’ he asked slowly, not looking too convinced.

  ‘Well, that’s the problem, Derek. It’s really an emergency that needs to be treated in a clinic. We only have the basics on board here,’ I told him, indicating our useful, but limited stock in the ambulance presses.

  ‘What ’as te be done?’ he asked, still looking slightly incredulous.

  ‘Well, what they need to do is to pass a catheter, a small plastic tube, into the bladder to try to relieve the blockage.’

  ‘Up ’is bleedin’ willy, like?’ he asked, subconsciously crossing his legs as though in sympathy with his luckless dog.

  ‘Yes, that right,’ I confirmed, stony-faced, fully aware of the renewed interest of the waiting crowd.

  ‘Ah no, Doc, dey couldn’t do dat to ’im. Nah, I couldn’t let dem,’ he added, shaking his head emphatically.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no option, Derek,’ I explained. ‘You can see he’s in terrible pain. You can’t leave him like that.’

  Derek thought for a moment and then, shaking his head again, replied, ‘Ah Jayney, no! No! He’d never be righ’ after dat.’

  The conversation might have gone on all night if Monty hadn’t let out a particularly heart-rending moan, convincing everyone that something needed to be done – and quickly.

  In one way I was glad to have the excuse to refer the dog on, as, judging by the tension of his bladder, he was in a bad way. It felt like a good-sized tennis ball in a small terrier’s body, bigger than any bladder I had ever felt. The stocks at the clinic didn’t stretch to urinary catheters. An emergency clinic would have all the necessary medications and equipment to do a good job on Monty. As always, though, in real life it was never that simple.

  Derek’s face dropped as I gave him directions to the nearest emergency hospital and gave him a rough idea of the money he would need to bring with him. It was clearly a non-runner.

  Time ticked by for poor old Monty as Derek went outside to ring a few of his mates to see if he could make up the money, but minutes later he was no better off. The best he could do was to try to get money from his boss at the weekend. Another feel of Monty’s abdomen was enough for me to be sure that the little dog couldn’t wait that long.

  Rummaging through my bag, I pulled out a fine twenty-one gauge, one and a half-inch needle. I mixed up a solution of hibiscrub and carefully cleaned the hairless portion of the abdomen.

  ‘We have to empty the bladder – one way or another,’ I told Derek. ‘This isn’t the ideal way of doing it but if we don’t release the pressure the bladder is going to burst.’

  Derek started to go a bit green underneath his evening stubble w
hen he realised that I was going to drain it through the side of Monty’s abdomen. Gordon was ready to take over and deftly restrained the little dog. Eamon stood by with a swab and a hush fell among the expectant onlookers. Having pulled on sterile gloves, I withdrew the needle from its pack and stabbed it through the body wall. Monty never flinched with such a minute pain compared to the intense discomfort that he had been experiencing over the past few hours. Instantly, a gush of deeply coloured urine shot out in a spray, ending on the far window. The onlookers jumped back in amazement as they watched the continuous flow from my needle. Monty appeared to be totally oblivious to the whole procedure and stood panting uncomfortably from the still considerable pressure. Eamon was quick to grab hold of a small dish and by angling my needle, I was able to direct the flow. The hissing of urine on stainless steel continued as everyone stood in amazement, watching the level of red-tinged fluid slowly creep up the container. The steady stream of urine seemed to go on and on. The crowd stood silently, in awe, watching the little dog, who was clearly starting to feel some relief from the slowly subsiding pressure. What had been regular panting broke down to intermittent bouts – the only sound that changed was the continuously deepening pitch of the urine hitting a slowly filling container. When it was almost three-quarters full, Monty, looking around for the first time as though surprised to see a crowd, cautiously at first, wagged his stump of a tail.

  Derek’s eyes grew wide in awe at the capacity of his beloved pet and eventually blurted out, ‘Jayney, de fecker musta been on de Guinness last nigh’!’

  The crowd erupted, relieved by the break in tension, and even Monty seemed to join in the general feeling of light-heartedness, his tail now wagging frantically, undoubtedly induced more by the declining size of his rapidly shrinking bladder than from the aspirations regarding his drinking capacity.