Vet Among the Pigeons (18 page)

Maybe it is just that in the twilight hours my tolerance dies somewhat or maybe the clients themselves become bewitched and lose some of their sense of normality. In the early hours of one Saturday morning, I got a call from a client – in fact, not a client, but a friend of a client, or
actually
, a neighbour who knew the friend of a client. I’m not sure exactly. Being woken from my sleep before dawn left my senses less able to follow the intricate details of how
the person on the other end of the phone had come to ring me. Anyway, what evolved after a minute or two of such explanations was that the person in question had found a hedgehog. Glancing at my clock, I noticed that it was a little past three in the morning. ‘You found a hedgehog?’ I repeated incredulously, wondering had it just hopped into her room and appeared under the bedclothes or was she, perhaps, on an impromptu camping trip. ‘Well, actually, I found him … or it could be a her – I’m not sure if it’s a girl – last Thursday,’ continued my newfound client. ‘I found him under the garden shed. I think he was attacked by a cat or something.’

Thankfully, her continuous chatter prevented me from having to formulate any sort of reply as I lay slumped against my pillow. Briefly my eyes closed, before I awoke again with a jerk hoping to find out why she was ringing me at three in the morning about a hedgehog. It seemed she was finally getting to the point: ‘… and it’s just that now he’s making this sort of funny snuffling, grunting noise and I don’t know what to do.’ There was silence as I lay, phone to ear, wondering why it had to be me.

‘Well,’ I replied, thinking as ably as I could at that hour of the morning, ‘I think that hedgehogs often make a
snuffling
, grunting noise. I wouldn’t be too concerned. But if you are, why not keep him warm and safe in a box tonight and bring him into the surgery in the morning?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, I’m afraid. I live in Kildare, you see. I just didn’t want to bother my own vet at this hour of the night but Martina said you wouldn’t mind me ringing
you. There’s no way I could get down to you in Wicklow. Is there any chance you could do a call-out?’

At least that hedgehog was alive at the time and may possibly have benefited from my professional services, although, I am sorry to say, my ethical conscience was not enough to convince me to make that trip to Kildare the next day. I never did discover the fate of the snuffling, grunting hedgehog.

Another night, however, was really to stretch me to my limits. It’s not uncommon in the job to answer the phone to the sound of uncontrolled crying. All you can do is wait a few moments for the caller to identify themselves and give some clues so that you may offer some words of
consolation
or advice. After a few more, sobs, the strangled words came out. ‘He got hit by a car …’ followed by more raucous crying. Instantly I woke up, now fully alert after a mere two hours of sleep. The combination of a road traffic accident and a hysterical owner normally results in work, be it minor or major. After a few questions, I realised I was getting nowhere. ‘Can you put him in the car and bring him to the surgery?’ I offered, hoping to at least get to the animal in question. In between the muffled sobs, I barely distinguished the words ‘no car’ and ‘collect him’. Wearily, I realised that I was going to have to call out to collect the unfortunate animal, which would result in a lot of delay before getting it to the surgery for vital treatment. It was difficult to get directions from the lady herself and after a few minutes, I was passed over to an irate-sounding man who gruffly barked out directions to a housing estate some seven or eight miles away.

‘I’ll get to you as quickly as I can,’ I told him, jotting down the last of the directions. ‘In the meantime, keep him quiet and don’t offer him anything to eat or drink.’ There was a brief silence before the less devoted owner
questioned
, ‘But how could he eat anything when he’s dead?’

‘He’s dead?’ I said, falteringly. Usually, the first few minutes of a phone call are taken up with discussion as to the clinical condition of the patient, but as the owner was so distraught I had by-passed that stage of the
conversation
and somehow missed this vital piece of information.

The silence on the other end of the line was
unrewarding
and again I repeated, ‘So, he’s dead?’

‘Well, I said he’s dead, didn’t I? How dead to you want him?’ at which a renewed wail broke out again in the background.

‘I’m afraid,’ I began, ‘that if he’s dead, then there isn’t much point in me calling for him. There’s really not a lot I can do.’

‘Well, I can’t have a dead dog in my garden. What am I meant to do with him?’

‘Of course we can arrange to have him taken care of in the morning,’ I continued, blissfully realising that I could stay in my bed for the moment. ‘There is really no need for me to take him away at this hour of the night.’

‘I didn’t say anything about taking him away,’ he
bristled
, clearly not pleased at my level of co-operation. ‘The wife wants him buried in the back garden.’

I was momentarily stunned as it gradually dawned on me that this unknown man wanted me to call out his
house and bury his dog in his back garden in the middle of the night. I was quite sure that there was never any
mention
of this level of care in the Hippocratic oath we once took.

‘I’m afraid, Sir,’ I replied, ‘that really isn’t part of the
service
we provide. It’s not my job.’

‘Well, it sure as hell isn’t mine,’ he roared back down the phone.

A
s soon as I palpated the solid, irregular mass deep in the cat’s abdomen, I knew Sophie was in
trouble
. It was a Wednesday night and out in the clinic in Ballyfermot all had been going too smoothly for comfort. Until now, the patients had had nothing more than itchy ears, mild stomach upsets or the need for a
routine
vaccination. It almost looked like we were going to get out in time for Gordon and Eamon to catch the second half of Ireland versus Portugal on the big screen. The tall lady carrying a makeshift cat basket was second from last in the queue and it was only a quarter-past eight. Having struggled to open the straps on the box, she carefully folded back the edges of the lid to reveal a pretty little
tortoishell
cat, quite miniscule in stature. As she gently unwrapped the blanket, it was immediately obvious that Sophie was a very sick cat. Her eyes had sunk deep in their sockets and the protruding third eyelids were caked in a thick yellowish discharge. Her coat was dull and rough to 
the touch and from her hind quarters there came the
ominous
smell of a putrid discharge that stained both her fur and the blanket. Apparently, Sophie had happily
delivered
a litter of two kittens four days previously and, despite her tiny frame and tender age, all seemed well. When she became more listless, Sandra, the owner, had assumed that she was just settling peacefully into her role of motherhood, but then Sophie went off her food. For two days she had eaten nothing and only with great
coaxing
would she accept some warmed milk. It was the
previous
morning that the foul-smelling discharge had started and the owner knew that something was seriously amiss. Although the Blue Cross clinics operate from a
different
location every night at various centres around the city, Sandra herself had no car and had been unable to organise transport until that evening.

As Sophie was alone in the box, I assumed that the two kittens had not survived until Sandra dug deep in the pocket of her heavy overcoat and carefully pulled out two minute little creatures from what looked like a doll’s
blanket
. At four days old, the kittens were pitifully thin, although they appeared to be fairly robust as they nudged at Sandra’s outstretched hand, mewing piteously,
desperate
to procure some milk.

Running a hand along Sophie’s tiny frame, I gently squeezed her mammary gland and was not surprised to find little milk.

‘What is it? What do you think is wrong with her?’ asked Sandra with obvious concern.

‘I think she still has a kitten inside her,’ I replied as I
gently probed the irregular mass in Sophie’s abdomen.

‘Oh, poor Sophie! What have I done to you?’ asked Sandra, placing a protective hand over the tiny creatures in her hand.

‘Can you do anything for her?’ she asked eventually, as I stood silently examining the cat while my mind went over the limited options available.

‘She needs to go on an intravenous drip tonight. She’s much too sick and dehydrated for surgery at the moment. Hopefully, she may improve overnight, enough to operate on her in the morning.’

I could tell that Sandra wasn’t really taking it all in. She glanced back at two young children who were waiting outside the tiny consulting area of the clinic.

‘Will she make it, do you think?’ she half-whispered to me.

‘She is a very sick cat, but I think if we can start treating her tonight and then get her through surgery, she would have a chance. Cats are amazingly tough creatures,’ I told her. I wondered, though, as I looked down at Sophie, who lay flat-out, oblivious to the consternation, her thin frame heaving with each laboured breath.

‘I don’t suppose you can do all that here, can you?’ asked Sandra finally, a pleading look in her eyes.

‘No. I’m afraid not. We really need to get her to the emergency hospital tonight.’

I knew as I said it that this just wasn’t going to be an option. Sandra was a regular at the clinic as she suffered from a permanent disability that left her unable to work. Tending to the needs of her growing children stretched
her meagre budget way beyond capacity. She would never be able to cover expensive bills for the family pet as well.

At that stage, Eamon discreetly went out with the
children
to distract them while I, Sandra and Gordon tried to come up with an alternative.

‘How much would it cost me if we waited until the morning and I went to one of your referral clinics?’ asked Sandra. The Blue Cross scheme usually paid half of the bill, but even with the discount I knew the cost would still be too much. Equally, I didn’t think Sophie could wait until morning for treatment to begin if she was to have any chance of survival.

As I continued examining the fragile form on the
blanket
, I mentally re-ran Seamus’s not so subtle displeasure the last time I had brought a Blue Cross case home with me, but still, I rationalised to myself, it’s only a cat. It’s not going to cost too much.

Knowing that there really was no alternative, I soon had Sophie and her kittens wrapped warmly in a cat cage I usually carried in the car with me. Sandra had signed a makeshift consent form and I promised to ring her in the morning as soon as the surgery was completed.

In the short time that the consultation had taken, the last remaining person in the queue had been joined by at least a dozen more. Before the next client came in, I got the litre of fluids I had stocked in my car and placed them in a
sinkful
of warm water. By the time the clinic was finally over, the fluids had heated and almost cooled down again. Gordon held the tiny kittens and Eamon held Sophie while I clipped and scrubbed a vein to insert an intravenous
cannula. Sophie barely even registered the sharp needle piercing her tough, dehydrated skin and I sighed with relief as the plastic insert glided smoothly into the vein. Having securely taped the cannula in place, I attached the giving set and adjusted it to the correct rate. I then placed Sophie back in the cat carrier, along with her kittens. With the box secured on the passenger seat by the safety belt, I hooked the bag of fluids from the handle over the window, thankful for the thoughtfulness of car
manufacturers
in having included such a convenient drip stand!

I usually dropped Eamon home after the clinic and this time he was relegated to the back seat as we headed back towards the city.

On the way home, I toyed briefly with the idea of
bringing
Sophie into the practice, but apart from having to make the detour late at night, I realised that I had everything I needed for her in the boot of the car.

Slug was quite excited when I opened the door and she smelt the cat in the basket; even more so when she heard the snuffles and mews of the kittens. I set the basket up in the bathroom and while Donal boiled the kettle, I heated up a syringe of fluids for the kittens. Having swabbed their paper-thin abdomens with some antiseptic and then
surgical
spirit, I angled the needle through the skin and injected some heated glucose saline which would keep the kittens hydrated. In the morning, I would be able to get some kitten formula to add to the meagre ration they would receive from their mother.

Taking care to shut the bathroom door behind me, I took Slug out of temptation’s way and settled down in
front of the fire with a steaming mug of hot chocolate before climbing wearily into bed, hoping to catch a few hours’ sleep before Fiona, now almost six months old, woke. She had developed a habit of waking up at
wearyingly
regular intervals with supposed colic throughout the night and I had long since given up on her ‘growing out’ of it. As usual, she first woke shortly after one in the morning and when she finally settled, I made my way down to check on the visitors, although there was not much that I could do for them at that stage. I repeated the procedure several times through the night, Slug snuffling
enthusiastically
behind me each time.

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.