The guy in the white coat says that at least I’ll have shown lots of people that pit bulls aren’t necessarily dangerous dogs. It shatters the myth, he says. It lays a few ghosts, and it’s an opportunity to show people the true consequences of paying lip-service to presidential declarations, and to rub their noses in it.
I’m not a ghost, like he says. I’m not bothered, I’m getting good food, I’m getting a fuss made of me, and when there’s no one around I can wander round the clinic.
Lots of people have come in and said they’d find me a home. Old people, young people, English people, French people, people in comfortable clothes and people in not so comfortable clothes, people who smell of cows and people who smell of perfume. Will they find me a home?
Whatever. None of them ever come back anyway.
The guys in white coats talk a lot, and make lots of phone calls. They still look nonplussed when they see me, so I wag my tail. You can’t beat it. Well, sometimes when I go a bit over the top with the whining they don’t look nonplussed at all, but well, I’m bored stiff, what do they expect!’
‘Freezer, shut UP!’
Seriously.
Three weeks it’s gone on now. It’s evening, and the taller guy in the white coat is squatting beside me, a cigarette between his lips, watching me as I roll on the grass. He looks sad.
‘The condemned man’s last cigarette, hmm?’
There were loads of phone calls this afternoon. I even saw the mayor, though the mayor didn’t really want to see me.
A really nice lady asked the vets if they were going to ‘euthanise’ me:
‘Surely you’re not going to?’
‘Are you offering to have her?’
Silence …
‘But doesn’t it seem strange to you to kill a healthy, good-natured three-year-old dog that’s been part of your daily life for the past three weeks?’
The guy in the white coat looked at her. Then he put on a weird voice:
‘You vets do such a wonderful job.’
I’m not bothered, I’m rolling in the grass. It’s cold. Life’s good.
‘I’m sorry, pretty girl, you’ve got an ugly mug.’
Wag that tail.
I get a whole shed-load of cuddles and strokes on their funny table. I didn’t much like that plastic needle thing they put in my paw, and they don’t say anything, or not much, but they make a big fuss of me. And they mean it.
I’m pretty, I’m lovable, I’m clingy and I’m a bit of a pain in the bum.
They’re all here: wag that tail.
The guy in the white coat is holding a syringe, and his expression is blank. They stroke me as he gives me the injection.
I’m pretty, I’m lovable, I’m clingy and I’m a bit of a pain in the bum. I’m called …
Freezer.
Birth
It’s darkest night. The moon is completely hidden behind the clouds, but my headlights sweep across the surreal sight of this little forest road in the middle of a hailstorm. A carpet of leaves covers the road, lime green and silver with the tarred surface peeping through here and there, streaming with water, black and dazzling in the glare of the halogen beams.
Among the bushes that rush past at such hectic speed I make out thickets of young branches and leaves, ferns and brambles, impenetrable refuges for deer no doubt terrified by the storm.
The orange display on the dashboard tells me it’s one o’clock in the morning.
The air is cool, yet it’s mild outside, with not a breath of wind. The damp smell of woodland lingers on the air. I feel as though I’m floating on a soft cloud of sensations washed clean by the storm. Ten minutes ago I was oblivious to the weather. I was fast asleep, cocooned in the duvet, far away from the world and its storms.
A man comes towards me. A retired farmer who fifteen years ago had his moment of glory with a herd that regularly swept the board at agricultural shows. Even in Paris.
Now I’d be hard pushed to put an age to him. If I didn’t know he was retired, I’d say he was barely 60. He sighs, recites a little monologue, tells me he’s made a mistake, that he should never have let this pregnancy go to full term when the heifer is barely two years old. An accident.
‘She was there beside me, chewing the cud, looking at me. Her waters had broken an hour earlier, and then nothing, she wasn’t straining. I put my hand inside her and the calf was dead, all stiff.’
Somewhere inside me an impossible hope stirs, a voice whispers that the calf will come out by itself, even if the heifer is young, even if she’s too fat, even if out of the three calvings this retired farmer has had – and there have only been three – we’ve had to intervene three times. The fourth will be different …
The cow is lying in a large calving box, on a deep bed of fresh straw. Beyond the barrier that separates the box from the rest of the cowshed, an enormous blonde cow is twisting round to get a better view. Beside her is the calf, too large and too heavy, that I helped her deliver barely two weeks ago. I’d suggested then that we should induce the heifer that night. He’d decided to wait.
The adrenalin hasn’t kicked in yet, and I feel a bit anaesthetised. I pull off my jumper, put on my waterproof apron and examination gloves, and pass the caesarean box with its resuscitation equipment under the barrier. I also grab the calving aid and some ropes.
‘Can you hold the cow?’
‘She won’t budge …’
I climb over the barrier and slip my right hand into the birth canal of the cow, which is still lying down and watches me curiously. My left hand is leaning on her leg, my knees are sunk in the straw. The calf is a big one, the birth canal isn’t fully dilated, nor is the cervix. I pinch the skin between the calf ’s hooves. No reaction. Yes, it probably is dead.
‘Right, let’s tie her up and get her on her feet, then we can see if it’ll pass.’
I feel as though it’s an effort to raise my voice, yet the air is so pure that according to all the clichés it should slice clean through the ether like the crack of whip, the shaft of an arrow, a chord of crystalline notes or whatever else you care to mention. I feel really groggy, insubstantial: I’m going to have to concentrate.
When she sees the farmer’s rope, the young cow grasps right away that things are getting serious. She gets up by herself, and walks round the box a couple of times for form’s sake, before giving in and letting us get on with what we have to do.
This time I try to muster a little more energy. Surely I can manage to shake off my torpor now? Both arms deep inside her, I check how much further the birth canal and vulva can dilate. For the moment, the calf won’t get through. Despite the stimulation, the cow doesn’t strain: another lazy one that will have to have it all done for her. The calf, meanwhile, seems well and truly dead. Oh well, we’ll see …
I get down to work, moving my arms back and forth to force the cow to strain, to push the calf upwards. Its hooves aren’t even pointing forwards, the cervix is still far too evident, the birth canal too narrow, and I’m not even sure that the cow’s pelvis is wide enough to allow the calf to pass through. A C-section for a dead calf, though … I’ll give it my best shot, anyway, I just want to get back to bed as soon as I can. Very slowly, as I push and pull my arms back and forth, back and forth, the cow starts to respond, contracting her abdomen and pushing a little, again just for form’s sake. Not enough. Gradually the scent of the forest is submerged by the sickly smell of amniotic fluid, and I feel as though I’m enclosed in a bubble of straw, its circumference described by the golden light of the little light bulb hanging on the wall. It’s very dark. Beyond the windbreak netting I sense the presence of the Pyrenees, but it’s all unreal. There’s just the cow and me. Apart from her breathing, the pauses when she pushes, and my encouragements to her, nothing disturbs the silence of the night. I’ve almost forgotten about the farmer. We’re in for the long haul. Seriously long.
At last, after I’ve been working away for ten minutes or so, I emerge from my comfortable c
ocoon. I’m awake at last. My forehead is beaded with sweat. The cow has also shrugged off her bovine torpor. We both surface from our trance-like state in synchrony, moving slowly in a strange dance, to the syncopated beat of our joint exertions. Waves of amniotic-laden air submerge and engulf me. There’s the cow, the calf, and me.
‘So?’
One word from the farmer and the spell is broken. I pause in my efforts. Immediately, the heifer stops pushing.
‘Let’s attach the ropes and give it a try. I don’t think it’ll work, though.’
I position the two nooses: the hooves are pointing towards the vulva at last, but the head hasn’t even passed through the pelvis. As the calving aid starts to pull, the cow lies down, but despite our efforts not even the head is engaged. Abruptly I call a halt.
‘It won’t come out. We’ll have to open her up.’
The expression on the farmer’s face speaks volumes. His lips move:
‘Bugger.’
I couldn’t agree more. It’s nearly twenty past one. Only twenty past one?
‘I’ll call my neighbour and ask him to bring the clippers over.’
‘Very good. I’ll get everything ready.’
Open the caesarean box, check the suture materials, get out the antibiotics and an injection of tocolytics, an anti-contraction medication. Now what?
Wait.
Five long minutes after I’ve laid everything out, the neighbour arrives. It’s all I can do not to sink back into my slumbers.
Shave, clean, disinfect, now things are getting serious. Despite the odd kick from the cow, which doesn’t appreciate the injections of local anaesthetic, the atmosphere remains serenely calm: even the neighbour has now slipped inside our cotton-wool cocoon. I don’t pay much attention to his small talk about the hailstorm, any more than I do to the protestations of the heifer, which after our combined efforts of earlier seems to view the ordeal I’m now subjecting her to as a betrayal. OK, now I’m descending into anthropomorphism. It really is time to go back to bed.
I make an incision in the hide. This time the heifer doesn’t move.
A few strokes of the scalpel, light as caresses, and the muscles of her flank part. She gazes at me inscrutably. The way the muscular fibres unzip in a stream of blood, without the slightest effort on my part, is almost surreal.
Now there’s just the last membrane, the fine milky wall behind which I can feel the slow contraction and warmth of the intestines. The peritoneum. One final stroke, light as a feather, and I put down the scalpel. I disinfect my gloves one last time, then sink my left arm into the heifer’s belly. Still she doesn’t move. I skirt round the rumen and slip my hand under the uterus. I can feel the calf ’s hocks through the uterus, which feels reassuringly solid: it won’t tear.
I draw my arm out, before plunging it back in, this time with an ordinary paper knife in my hand. I locate the hocks, and prick the uterus with the point of the paper knife. Working blind, I feel the tissues in the depths of the cow’s abdomen slide apart almost imperceptibly. The opening is large enough. I draw my hand out and put down the paper knife. The two retired farmers stand ready to attach the ropes to the calf ’s hind legs. I don’t need to say a word: between us we have a certain amount of experience of these births.
My hand slips into the mother’s belly to find my incision again. I take hold of the calf ’s hock, and I pinch it – just in case. I have to hide a grin. There was a reaction. It’s alive, but I don’t say anything. I don’t want to build up any false hopes only to dash them again. In any case, in a minute it will be out. I follow the cannon bone with my hand to reach the hoof of the right hind leg, which I draw towards the opening in the uterus and then towards myself, towards the outside world. The uterus follows in a harmonious rocking motion, the hoof punctures the amniotic sac, the older of the two farmers has already got his rope in place and is holding the hoof outside.
When he exclaims, ‘But it’s moving!’, I don’t respond. I’m already drawing out the second hoof, to be held in place by an expertly placed rope, not touching the edge of the wound. Perfect.
‘Yes, it’s alive! Let’s get it out, come on, upwards and backwards!’
They make quite a sight, those two old boys, as they toil away in a frenzy, straining with all their might in this awkward movement that’s designed to allow the calf to unfold itself and us to get it out without exerting any unnecessary pressure on the uterus. To help them in their efforts, I enlarge the incision in the skin and muscles slightly: I’d made it a little too tight, as always. The two veterans pant away, the calf emerges slowly, very slowly. There’s a wave of relief as its pelvis passes through the wound: the rest is just a formality. I break its fall by cradling it in my arms, then quickly lower it to the ground. It’s huge, but it’s alive.
I rip off my gloves, still lost in a strange trance-like state. I check the umbilical cord, grab the cardio-respiratory analeptics – the stimulants: it’s stopped breathing.
‘Suspend it, quickly!’
The first farmer clambers over the barrier to slide the rope through the pulley that’s already in position, while the other one ties it around the nooses that are still attached to the calf ’s hind legs. I help them to suspend it upside down, clear the airways quickly, then give it an intravenous injection into the jugular of a drug strong enough to bring it back from the dead.
Before it has time to take its first breath I start on cardiac massage, while on my instructions the neighbour sloshes a bucket of ice-cold water in the newborn’s face. Welcome to the world!
It takes its first breath, its heart hammering away in response to the stress that’s saved its life. It struggles in panicky silence as I carry on extracting the mucus, pushing my fingers down into its trachea. It can come back down to earth now. Already I’m turning away from the calf to take care of its mother, who’s gazing at us as though we were extraterrestrials from some schlocky B-movie, spattered with blood, with straw in our hair and spouting top-quality dialogue:
‘Oh my god! Oh my god! If it isn’t alive! Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Good lord above!’
If he’d been younger, obviously, it would have been something more along the lines of ‘shit shit shit’. Plus ça change.
Meanwhile I’m working out what I still have to do. The uterine incision is pretty clean and the uterus isn’t torn, so that should be OK. I wedge the uterus on the side of the wound and start suturing.
First a continuous suture to close it up. I check it’s tight enough and watertight. I think I must have woken up at the same time as the calf. When I resuscitated it we must have shared the same adrenalin rush. Now I share banter and sympathy with the farmer, who will have to ensure the survival of this enormous calf that looks every bit as lively as its mother …
A good twenty minutes later the second continuous suture is done, to ensure the uterus is properly sealed and bury the suture. This uterus wasn’t so easy to stitch up in the end.
I like the way the uterus looks after all those stitches, almost as if nothing had happened at all. Finally, I put the uterus back in place. Already it’s shrunk massively in size.
Suture of the peritoneum and first muscular layer. There’s a lot of meat on this animal.
Suture of the next two muscular layers, no problem. In comparison with the suture of the uterus, these are a mere formality.
Finally, I sew up the hide and close the wound.
It’s three o’clock in the morning. Now that I’m wide awake, I can go back to bed.
Or else I’ll have a coffee with the two old boys, and a match replay. The calf is alive in the end, but he’s looking just about as alert as I probably did when I arrived earlier.
The night is still silent, still starless.
Go on then, time for that coffee.
Failure
Failure is an old friend of mine, always looking over my shoulder, always ready to catch me out with some unforeseen twist, some new and grim practical joke. Failure haunts me whenever I c
arry out an examination, whenever I make a diagnosis, whenever I give a treatment, whenever I do a dissection or make a ligature. Failure clocks all my mental blanks and stupid mistakes, feeds my anxieties and multiplies my doubts.
Failure propels me forwards, too, driving me on to research subjects more deeply through the pages of medical books and the arcane hinterland of the internet. Failure sends me back to the drawing board, forces me to reconsider, quite simply teaches me to learn.
Failure is a constant companion in my daily routine. I try to keep the upper hand, by checking and observing, phoning and warning. Keep an eye on your pet, Monsieur: if you see this, or you don’t see that, call me, make an appointment, bring him back to see me. And if all’s well, give me a call to let me know. Nowadays the charge for many of the operations I carry out includes a follow-up appointment, well before the stitches come out. For cases of ear infections and corneal ulcers there are always several follow-up appointments, at a reduced rate or even virtually free if there are a lot of them.
Whenever anything takes an unexpected turn, I go back to my diagnosis, try to find the flaw in the treatment: was it the wrong treatment, or was it the right treatment wrongly applied? Has the owner administered the ear drops so that they penetrate into the inner ear, or has she deposited them in the outer ear, for fear of hurting her pet? A demonstration, a discussion around the subject, a check on the amount of liquid left – all can be useful avenues to explore. Further tests, ruled out initially, can be done. Bacterial and antibiotic susceptibility tests, for instance. Or X-rays, who knows?
Often, failure takes no account of the knock-on effects it can unleash; at its worst, it can set back healing, delay a cure.
And sometimes failure can kill.
Occasionally failure is my fault, the result of a mistake on my part. Insufficient knowledge or the wrong interpretation of a sign or symptom can lead to a false or incomplete diagnosis. Sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees. Or you put your finger on the effect and then confuse it with the cause. Failure rarely comes as a surprise: the more experienced I become, the more easily I can spot the underhand tricks and betrayals that it keeps in store. The better I can prepare for it, the better I can prepare the owner to recognise it, and together we can turn it into another step on the way to diagnosis and treatment. If I continue to foster my doubts, and my anxieties, this sort of failure will wither on the vine and die.
Monsieur le Vet Page 15