William's Gift

by Helen Douglas

  “With the New Year’s holiday, the embassies and airlines may not be open,” he said. “I doubt if you will make it back to the group again; you’ll probably have to fly home from there.”

  Because of my carelessness, both of us would miss the whole trip. I cried on and off all night, feeling guilty and anxious. My companions made an impressive effort to search the area with flashlights in case the belt had been discarded, but no luck. Vicky did not show either her distress or any animosity towards me, staying calm and very quiet.

  The next morning, we were put on a bus for the four-hour ride to Delhi. It was the day before New Year’s Eve.

  Simon left us, saying, “On Saturday night, we will be in Agra visiting the Taj Mahal. If you can get back there with Vicky’s paperwork, meet us at Lauries Hotel. After that, you won’t be able to find us until Kathmandu. Good luck.”

  Imagine how despondent and alone we felt leaving them. And now we were both living entirely off my funds. When we got to Delhi station, we asked a taxi driver to take us to the Central Tourist Camp, as Simon had advised, and were driven around and around through smoky streets. Later I found out we had been taken far out of our way. Our eyes and noses stung from the diesel fumes that hung over the city. We stayed in a cabin that looked like an outhouse. It barely had room for the two small cots inside, and the floor was muddy cement that had been mopped but hadn’t dried. There was no bedding, a single light bulb hung from the ceiling, and there were plenty of rats scurrying around outside.

  “I guess you get what you pay for,” I said, as it was only four dollars nightly to stay there. We choked down a ghastly supper and retired, not knowing what else to do. We lay side by side, terrified but trying to put on a game face, and formulated our plan for the next few days. I’m sure both of us were awake well past midnight.

  “What a unique way to spend New Year’s Eve,” Vicky joked gamely in her strong Aussie accent. I felt a wave of relief that she was capable of a moment of levity.

  The saga of the next few days is long, and I’ll forego all the details, but suffice it to say we worked very hard at our task, taking many taxis, waiting in many lineups and literally pushing our way into bureaucratic offices. Even to use the phone required standing in line for hours to be handed a phone with a crackling line that might or might not stay connected. We had to get paperwork stamped and notarized — usually far from where it had been issued — and we had to wait and wait. Finally, by Saturday at noon and through sheer, unbending determination, we had everything replaced, including Vicky’s traveller’s cheques. We could rejoin our group.

  Elated, we taxied to the bus station to book an express bus to Agra. A booth outside the bus station with a sign saying “Lion Travel” advertised deluxe, air-conditioned coaches to Agra, leaving at 6:30 that night. Feeling more relaxed, we splurged on the tickets and returned to our cabin to pack up. But it wasn’t to be that simple!

  When we returned, the booth was gone. It had simply disappeared. One of the men appeared and, seeming agitated, told us that the bus was to leave from the Red Fort, several miles away, not the bus station. He wrenched our packs from us and shoved them into a taxi, so we got in with the two men, feeling very shaky. At the Red Fort, we were asked for money to buy our bags back and unceremoniously dumped out. There was no bus. I was so upset and angry I found myself yelling at him, and then a policeman and a crowd gathered. It was now close to six p.m. We had to get to Agra, four hours away, that night, or we would miss our friends and the rest of the trip.

  We were rescued by a Sikh taxi driver who simply took pity on us. He was genuinely kind, spoke excellent English, and took care of us until we got onto a local bus, even standing in line to buy our tickets. We had been warned to hold onto our belongings, so we sat in the crowded seats with our bulky knapsacks on our knees bumping along through the night. There were no more bus stations, but people seemed to get on and off randomly, and at each stop we asked, “Agra, Agra?” Finally a man nodded “Agra,” and we got out into a dark road in a residential area of a town we were not even sure was the right one.

  A bicycle rickshaw pulled up and in voices getting ever more weary and disconsolate, we asked “Lauries Hotel?” He nodded and within ten minutes had us there. We pulled into the gates at eleven and saw our truck and our friends. The relief both of us felt was beyond describing. We laughed and told stories well into the night and pulled out with them at six in the morning, not caring that we had missed seeing the Taj Mahal.

  The rest of the time in India went without mishap. Often adventurous, sometimes just hot, boring, and dusty, our time was spent exploring the countryside and small towns most tourists would never see. The Australians kept us laughing with their irreverent humour. We saw the bathing ghats and the burning ghats on the banks of the Holy River Ganges, a sobering yet mystical experience. We tried to absorb what we saw there, as families came to worship and bury their dead in the revered river. We rode elephants in the jungles of the lowland to the north, and then started to ascend the foothills towards Nepal.

  It was exhausting — camping every night, taking down and setting up our tents daily. The one or two nights we stayed at small hotels were particularly special times. We were now immune to the grungy rooms and enjoyed the showers, especially if they were hot.

  It was on the climb to Kathmandu, a truly magical city nestled in a valley surrounded by snowcapped Himalayan mountains, that I first started to feel joy. Surrounded by terraced rice fields carved into the steep slopes of the green hills, we negotiated hairpin turns for a whole day of climbing. As the sun shone and I listened to my favourite music on my Walkman earphones, we passed Buddhist temples, stupas with prayer wheels, and Nepalese teahouses. The atmosphere somehow changed, and the beautiful Tibetan and Nepalese people we passed on foot shyly smiled back at us. Although I had had growing moments of feeling light and happy during the trip, on that day I really snapped out of it. I became myself again. My overwhelming feeling was that it was good to be alive. The cloud had lifted.

  Once in Kathmandu, we had a week to explore from the decent hotel where we were based. We were advised to take a trip even farther up and watch the sunset over the Himalayas. I took the local bus to a nearby village one day by myself and wandered the streets feeling safe and enchanted, despite the crowd of raggedy children following me. There were religious festivals daily in Kathmandu, temples to explore, and many travellers and tourists who gathered at night in westernized restaurants to swap stories and give advice. Our tour ended here, and we all flew out at different times, vowing to keep in touch, visit one another, exchange photos. The six weeks had forged incredible bonds. My twenty-four-hour flight home took me to Karachi, Islamabad, and Istanbul before arriving back safely in London. Deplaning and re-boarding in Karachi at gunpoint, I thought to myself, This will be an adventure to the end. I left vowing to go back to Nepal in my lifetime. Somehow, unbelievably, I had found my way across several continents and was back safe in my little room at Peggy’s. I slept for three days.

  Now that I had recovered more of my normal self, the rest of my time at Peggy’s was a bit restless. We walked, visited her friends, and explored antique stores, but I felt very much on hold. A job I had been offered in Newmarket fell through, as a work permit could not be had. I started to look forward to going home.

  During my last few weeks in England, I attended Crufts Dog Show, perhaps the most well-known dog show in the world. I admired several top winning Dobermans and subsequently arranged to meet their breeders. The dogs were elegant, big-boned, and well socialized. I learned a whole new language of lineages and pedigrees. Before I left England, I purchased a lovely, big, black-and-tan male puppy. Full of promise, I named him Tuxedo in honour of my regal patient of so long ago. Tux and I flew home in time for the spring rush to begin.

  As soon as I devoted myself to thinking about my next step, what I was to do became crystal clear. I needed to d
o what I most wanted to do: work with top horse veterinarians and learn. This was the golden opportunity. My renters would stay on in the house. I applied for and took a job in Toronto at an excellent equine practice. Nothing had ever felt so right since I applied to veterinary school.

  ELEVEN

  Hurricane

  TORONTO IS A BUSTLING metropolis, in huge contrast to the Ottawa Valley. Traffic, the arts, nightlife, teeming humanity all abound, and the horse scene is just as dynamic as the rest of the city. In a ring surrounding the north part of the city, there are many large and small barns, and there was a thoroughbred track in the city near our clinic. The clinic was in proximity to the track for a good reason: my two employers, partners at Rexdale Equine Clinic, specialized in arthroscopic surgery on race horses. They looked after the race horses themselves, and as I was informed when I was hired, I was to look after primarily the many pleasure and show horse barns farther out of town.

  After a couple of weeks of staying with friends, I rented a ramshackle house just outside the spreading suburbs of west Toronto. It was truly falling down, as the property was to be developed for housing, and the house had not been maintained for years. Rain came in under the front door and the window trim and bathroom tiles were falling off, but it was in the country. I just needed my two acres of green to be happy. I could sit on the porch in the evening and see the lights of Toronto twinkling to the south of me, but walk the fields and country roads on the weekends.

  The landlady said I could have a horse in the equally dilapidated shed, and I soon had an electric fence set up. I purchased a big, powerful chestnut mare and tucked her in the small garage-cum-box stall. I knew that as long as I could ride, I could feel like myself in this unfamiliar urban world. And, as always, it gave me pleasure simply to have her there and look after her.

  Things at the clinic were busy, sometimes bordering on frantic. The two partners spent most of the day at the track looking after patients, but in the afternoons, there was a steady stream of animals to radiograph at the clinic. At least twice a week, the whole afternoon would be booked off for a surgery. At that time, the whole team had to be in place, as the horse had to be clipped, prepared, anaesthetized, and literally hauled into place on the table to be operated on. The recovery took as long as all of this combined, and often it was early evening before we had them on their feet and into one of the padded stalls. Cleanup took place after that. It was mentally challenging and tiring, but I was ready and focused. I was there to learn, straight and simple.

  During the first few weeks, I seemed to be professionally scattered and unsure. I made a few mistakes once again and minor gaffes, and they seemed to snowball on me. The clinic was small and overloaded with equipment, and as I rushed, eager to do well or just plain keep up, I managed to drop or bump into things too often, earning the name “Hurricane.” The partners called each other respectively “Big Guy” and “Big Guy,” and I doubted I could ever be part of that mutual admiration society. One in a string of new associates to have come and gone in that clinic, I was a workhorse and very useful, but not really a part of it. After Brentwood, it was very unsettling.

  The really good news was that the clients seemed very happy with my work, and their acceptance helped me get through some of the rougher days at the clinic, where my job was to act as a technician. There was one more aspect of the job that was very different for me. As a horse vet, it was strange to have to spend hours on four-lane freeways getting to calls; indeed, often most of the day was spent driving in heavy traffic. But the lovely horses and well-informed clients provided a balance for that. I felt committed to and pleased with my new job as an equine veterinarian and tried to absorb knowledge like a sponge.

  The alcohol swabs provided a flashpoint to emphasize my country background to Dr. Barokov, my boss. I had never used these little square pads in the past, but Dr. B. insisted they were important to the look of professionalism he wanted to maintain at our clinic. We had thousands on hand to be used to wipe our injection sites. It was important that I follow this protocol, and in time it became habit. This seemingly simple little procedure would be a source of unexpected irony in the future.

  At Brentwood, I seldom took x-rays because of all the problems I had getting good ones. Now, instead of ten plates a month, I could be taking ten a day and seeing many more brought in by the partners. One day, I had a pre-purchase exam to do an hour west of the clinic. The American purchasing the horse requested all joints possible to be radiographed, so I lugged forty or so x-ray cassettes with me. The horse was restless and had to be sedated for the last half of the radiographs to be taken. When I returned to the clinic I was delighted — the angles and exposures had been correct and I seemed to have a good set of x-rays. But my heart sank as I realized my labelling had been incorrect. Dr. B., looking over my shoulder, noticed it first.

  “Why do you have all four ankles labelled as right front or left front?” he asked. “What happened to the hind ankles?”

  I realized with a sinking feeling that there was no way the hind ankles could be identified positively. I would have to make the whole trip over again and retake all four ankles, labelling them correctly. This is partly how I learned, moving forward by making mistakes, listening to my new mentors. I thought of it as paying my dues. We all learn from mistakes, and I became a fanatic about double-checking labels after that. Trying hard to get back with a perfect diagnostic set of x-rays with no retakes became one of my biggest challenges.

  One service we provided that seemed to be out of vogue everywhere else was the regular tube worming of horses. Gradually, de-worming with pastes and liquids had completely replaced this invasive, old-fashioned procedure, and the results were seemingly just as good. But many of the older vets and trainers still believed in one “good” worming each year by nasogastric tube. I was often sent to the breeding barns to tube brood mares and young stock, sometimes twenty or thirty horses at one time. What a challenge it posed having to restrain yearlings that are young enough to be untrained yet big enough to be hard to handle and dangerous, for such a stressful procedure as passing a tube down their nose to their stomach!

  After the tube was passed, they had to hold still long enough to pour medication down the tube via a funnel. Sometimes they would leap forward halfway through the procedure, knocking people and medication everywhere. Even with the older, trained riding horses, the once or twice yearly day allotted for tubing was arduous. The largest barn I did had fifty horses, some of which had to be twitched with a rope or chain around the nose, or sedated; others would lunge or strike out suddenly with a front foot, which called for extra care. Each had their particular evasion, and thankfully the handler knew them all. Those days were exhausting. But as usual, there was an upside. I became quicker and more adept at tubing than I had ever thought possible.

  One afternoon at the in-hospital clinic, I had my first injection reaction. The two-year-old colt I was preparing for surgery had to have preoperative penicillin and an iv painkiller before clipping the knee where a bone chip was to be removed by arthroscopic surgery. It had been a relatively smooth day so far, and the receptionist, a knowledgeable horsewoman, came out to hold the colt for his injections. We would be ready on time at one o’clock. Penicillin is a white, thick liquid given intramuscularly, and I gave it in two places in the horse’s neck, having done so thousands of time before. Seconds after withdrawing the second intramuscular needle, I saw the colt start to quiver and look dazed, then he backed up rapidly, stiff-legged, and dropped to the ground, paddling rapidly as if galloping. He was seizuring. One of the boards on the front of the stall gave way and a foot came out through the stall front. I knew we had to try to get back to his head as soon as possible to prevent him fracturing his skull by banging it repeatedly on the hard stall floor or injuring his eyes. But it wasn’t safe to do anything other than try to hold the stall door closed and wait.

  “Hold tight while I go
get some tranquillizer. We’ll have to get it into him somehow!” I yelled, while Diana held the door tightly.

  I ran for my kit.

  When I returned, the paddling had slowed and the colt lay on his side, dazed. It didn’t look like he had any major cuts or damage to his head. We gingerly picked up the end of the lead rope, worried about setting him off again. I managed to get in and over his neck and administered the sedative in the vein. Immediately he relaxed and his respiration slowed. In ten minutes, he was on his feet. Would Dr. B. still want to go to surgery today? I doubted it, as there would undoubtedly be swelling in the colt’s brain. I paged him at the track to tell him.

  “It could happen to anyone who gives enough needles. We’ll reschedule for tomorrow or the next day,” he said. I felt relief flood through me. The “Hurricane” label was a bit of a burden, and I didn’t want further fuel on that particular fire. He didn’t seem as perturbed by the problem as I had been, and the surgery went fine the next day.

  We taught courses at a local community college, and one of the students there needed a room, so I decided to rent one out to help with the expenses. It worked well, as she was horse crazy and didn’t mind taking care of Kira, my mare, if I was late or away. Her friends were fun and often came around to play cards or party and their youthful spirits provided me with a lift and, vicariously, with a bit of a social life. One night, I was invited to karaoke with them. It was the first time I had ever seen these machines, or realized how many people played at singing regularly and well. Karaoke was a favourite pastime for a whole group of people I didn’t know about. It was hugely entertaining, and they managed to get me up on stage for a group number. I was rewarded by being voted the “best staff member to party with” at the Christmas banquet.

  “Best staff member to party with? What on earth have you been doing?” Dr. B asked on Monday morning with raised eyebrows.