Working with animals of any species can have its dangers but for some reason I seem to have had a little more time in hospital getting patched up or repaired from animal or unintentional self-inflicted injuries than Pete J. Perhaps he moves a little faster than I do. As a result there have been some times when he has had to hold the fort alone while I have lazed away. On occasions we have had to employ a locum or friend to help out. Once when I was out of action for several months a good friend of ours, Richard Lee from Hawke’s Bay, kindly filled in for several weeks. This fact continues to haunt me to this day. I still get reminded by some farmers about the vet who worked for us while I was out of action. ‘Hey Pete — remember that vet who was here when you were out of action after your prang. Gee, he was a good vet.’ The insinuation being that he was better than me — which is quite possibly very true.
Anyway, Pete would regularly pay me visits. His good humour usually cheered me up but I’m not always sure to my advantage. Laughter and broken ribs are uncomfortable bedmates. On one occasion I was incapacitated following a rather uncomfortable procedure — a haemorrhoidectomy. While this procedure is uncomfortable for the recipient, if it is anything like removing anal glands from a ferret, it is probably also an unpleasant job for the surgeon. Anyway, before Pete left he attached a large ‘Elizabethan collar’ around my neck, which I had some difficulty removing. Elizabethan collars are collars we place around a cat’s or dog’s neck to stop them licking bandages or wounds or chewing out stitches. So here I am lying in bed with this collar and the nurses start coming in.
For the rest of my stay in hospital my name seemed to be associated with a good deal of mirth. The image of me trying to chew out my rectal sutures obviously amused them.
I always looked forward to Pete’s visits over the years because he invariably brought along something to keep me amused, other than himself. If it wasn’t a good book, it was very oft en a small flask of a medicinal compound — usually a special single malt. While it may not have been to doctor’s orders I’m sure it always sped up recovery.
Together we have also visited friends in hospital. We decided one evening that my sister, who was having a prolonged and difficult first labour, needed some assistance. We arrived at the maternity ward and barged into the theatre all geared up with calving gowns, gumboots, calving jack, chains, and a bucket of lubricant and informed the concerned-looking doctor and nurses that we were here to assist. We are not too sure whether our offer was appreciated but believe the tense atmosphere in the theatre did improve a little.
Another time we thought we would cheer up a good mate who had had to undergo painful surgery for prostate cancer. We arrived at his room all properly attired in surgical gear. With gowns, masks, gloves, and surgery caps we would have been a little difficult to recognise. We carried a set of emasculators. Emasculators are what we use for castrating large animals with big testes. Castration is a very effective means of controlling prostate cancers. ‘Hello, Mr Sheild. We have come to fix you.’ (To fix = to neuter.) Tony was not terribly amused, which I guess is understandable under the circumstances. The nurses were bemused. We thought it was very funny.
One morning early in my career I was given a rather nasty kick below and inside the right knee while pregnancy testing some beef cows in, as was usual for the times, a rather substandard set of cattle yards. My response was understandable and included kicking the cow back, which did neither of us any good. By the time I had finished that herd and was trying to get my leggings and overalls off to drive to the next herd up the valley, my leg had swollen somewhat and the knee was not bending too well. I was developing a sizable haematoma. Methylated spirits cooled things down and after a while we drove to the next job. There were four herds to pregnancy test that day and by the time I had finished it was getting dark, my leg was very swollen, it was rather painful, and driving was not easy. I thought it prudent to perhaps drop in at the accident clinic and see if they could do anything to help. Otherwise it was going to be an uncomfortable night. So smelling like the contents of the rear end of a cow and still covered in much of it, I hobbled into the hospital. There was a young doctor on duty who took one look at my leg and decided that it definitely needed draining. This he said he would do with a large bore needle. For a good half hour he and every nurse in attendance scoured the hospital for a large bore needle. Now and then he would come back with some pathetic little needle and try and suck something out but this was a haematoma — clotted blood does not go through little holes.
Finally I said that I had a large needle or two in the car — would he like me to go and fetch one? His look was easy to read: ‘You filthy man, all covered in and smelling of cow shit, how can you have a sterile large bore needle that I can use, in your car, when we can’t find one in the hospital.’
He actually didn’t say anything. I tried to explain to him that I was a vet, that I deal with big animals that have big veins, that I give big doses of thick stuff through big bore needles as quickly as I can because I don’t have time to do it slowly. I need such needles because my patients refuse to sit around patiently reading books for an hour or two while I gently administer their treatments. A couple of hours later and as the night wore on, he got the message and let me hobble back to the car and retrieve one of the hundreds of shiny two inch 14G needles, all individually sealed in their sterile packaging, which I carried. This allowed him to suck enough contents of the haematoma out to relieve the pressure and allow me to get some sleep that night. However, it was not until after an older rural doctor took one look at it the following morning, whipped out a scalpel, made a decent gash in my leg, and released a bucket full of clotted blood that things came right.
Brain injuries are more serious. Not only do they affect you but they affect your relationship with friends, families, clients and patients. It can be as tough on them as on you. After I had landed on my head on the tennis court in Kekerengu, as detailed earlier, and Rod Heard and his son Andrew had bravely hacked me out of the wreck, fuel dripping, engine hissing, I remained unconscious for several hours. Although I was back working and flying in three months, I do not believe I was back to my old self for a good two years. My short-term memory and ability to verbally express myself were affected, and for some reason I seemed to go through angry periods. I also ‘lost it’ with animals.
Many of us, but not all, who work with animals all our lives — farmers, stockmen, shearers, stock agents, stock truck drivers, vets, and others — will develop a unique rapport with animals. It may sound trite but we seem to communicate with them on a different sensory level. Our ‘sixth’ sense allows us to safely move amongst mobs of stock or handle individuals and even our presence will calm them. It’s how and where you stand in relation to them, how you touch them, and how you look at them but most of all it is in the mind. One of the first lessons I tell a vet student getting work experience, when his or her presence seems to excite a group of animals, is to ‘relax and think nice thoughts’. Despite what many think I do not believe lots of talking or trying to make soothing human noises to animals that have never learnt human commands is of any help. A command to calm down usually has the opposite effect.
So, it’s all a bit of a mind thing. And after my knock on the head I lost the touch. My presence seemed to excite rather than relax animals, especially horses and deer. I lost the ability to be part of the mob and to anticipate their movements. I was no longer communicating with them. As a result I went back to my early practice days of arriving home with my daily quota of kicks and bites. Bluey Hope, an observant trotting trainer with whom I had regular contact, kept reminding me that I was ‘not right yet’. He noticed that I was not handling his horses the same and having more difficulty doing basic stuff like examining, stomach tubing, or administering injections. His horses would not relax in my presence. It was also Bluey who one day said, ‘Well done, Pete, you are back.’
My most recent, and hopefully last, visit to the hospital was for a perforated bowel and resultant peritonitis. It seemed to take an awfully long time before they had confirmed that I had a peritonitis — actually five days of increasing discomfort. In the meantime PJ and Stuart Burrough, who were regular visitors and were becoming increasingly concerned with the decline in my condition, were trying to encourage the medical profession to do something other than just observe.
At one stage I said to the surgeon in charge: ‘Look, I can’t tell you your job but if I was a dog I would by now be opening me up and having a look, and if I was a horse I would shoot me because this would be an animal welfare issue.’ He didn’t seem to find that amusing.
Eventually they confirmed I had peritonitis and I underwent emergency surgery. Due to complications my recovery was somewhat prolonged but was undoubtedly smoothed by a daily visit from PJ along with a little bottle of a good tonic.