Vet Among the Pigeons (11 page)

T
he first time I ever encountered the Murphy clan was on a cold morning in early spring on my way to Riverside Clinic. I had just driven past their halting site when I came across a heavy piebald cob making her way along the grass verge at a lazy trot. The rhythmic swaying of her tense abdomen confirmed that she was in foal. From her well-worn halter trailed a long length of blue rope, which I assumed had once served to tether her. I pulled in to watch, surprised to find the
creature
loose, and wondered what had spooked her. I
hesitated
for a moment and then, with the car wedged into the ditch, I flicked on the hazard lights and hopped out just ahead of the horse.

‘Whoa there,’ I called out reassuringly. As though
oblivious
to my presence, the mare trotted on until she was almost level with me.

‘Hike!’ I shouted, translating into horse-driving terms. She pulled up instantly and looked at me enquiringly.

‘What have you been up to?’ I asked her as I quickly checked over her to see that she had suffered no ill-effects from her adventure. Totally unperplexed by the change of plan, the mare happily followed me back in the direction she had come from. It wasn’t until then that I realised that she had travelled further than I thought and the halting site was by now a good half mile away. For a brief instant, thinking of the list of calls ahead of me, I was temped to hop up on her back and ‘jockey’ her home, but then thought better of it.

From a fair distance before reaching the entrance to the halting site, I was clearly visible to the Murphy family through the sparse blackberry bushes that offered a hedge around the site. Several faces appeared around the
caravans
and one by one the clan gathered to watch as we approached. The mare, as though sensing that the
adventure
was over, dragged her feet reluctantly, so that I was forced to encourage her repeatedly with a gentle flick of the rope. The silence from the gathering crowd was broken only by my intermittent ‘Yup, mare’ at my reluctant companion as I had long since given up trying to
encourage
her to ‘Trot on.’ From the apprehensive looks on the Travellers’ faces, I glad that I was still on foot.

Having made my way up the broad driveway, lined on either side with an array of modern caravans, I headed straight for the person who was obviously the boss man.

‘Good morning!’ I called out in what I hoped was a friendly voice. As there was no immediate reply, I
continued
, ‘I found this mare trotting up the road and thought she was probably one of yours.’ 

‘Aye, that there’s John-Joe’s cob,’ called out a young lad who looked no older than eight or nine. A frown from his mother silenced him.

‘Ah that’s fine, so,’ I replied, beginning to feel unnerved by the silence. ‘I’ll leave her with you, then,’ and I offered the frayed blue rope to a tall, but slightly wizened man, who had the look of being in charge. With a flick of his hand, he indicated another man, whom I assumed to be John-Joe.

‘Take the mare,’ he told him in a surprisingly deep voice, without taking his eyes off me.

As my companion was led off with a rally of ‘Yup, mare’ and ‘Gowan up’, the crowd gradually filtered away.

Feeling in some way that I had offended them, I turned away and headed back down the driveway, conscious of scurrying feet and giggling children behind me.

‘Missis,’ called the deep voice from behind me. I turned back, not knowing what to expect. ‘Thank ye kindly, Missis. Thank ye,’ and he turned away.

I had all but forgotten this brief incident when, a few weeks later, I got a call from the office just as I was
heading
off for lunch.

‘Paddy Murphy from the halting site was just on. He said he has a foal with a bad cut and they want you to call out as soon as you can.’

‘Me?’ I questioned in surprise as, until now, Seamus had always dealt with the Murphys. ‘But, sure, they don’t even know me.’

‘He was adamant they wanted you,’ she repeated. ‘He said something about you bringing back a horse of theirs.’

I was amazed because, at the time, I didn’t think they knew who I was. The car had been parked some distance away and I had been wearing nothing more incriminating than an ordinary pair of jeans and the customary wax jacket.

Although my stomach was feeling a little hollow, I was curious and decided to go straight out to see what was wrong with the foal.

The same cluster of people was gathered, awaiting my arrival, this time on the small patch of grass at the back of the enclosure. My self-consciousness grew as the crowd parted to let my car by. I instantly recognised the same mare and beside her, a sturdy-looking foal. There was a subdued hum as I got out. But any awkwardness I felt
vanished
instantly the moment I saw the foal’s hind-leg. Although from the front nothing seemed amiss, the whole hind-quarter was stained deep red with blood, some
congealed
and caked on the hairy coat, but still with a trickle of fresh blood oozing from the wound. This time I didn’t notice the silence as I bent down beside the pretty filly foal to inspect the damage. The whole inner side of the leg was exposed as a vast skin flap hung uselessly away from the complex structures of muscles they had once covered. I followed the wound up to the top of the inner-leg and, right up where the leg met the belly, I could see that the foal had obviously become ensnared in some sort of wire. I guessed that it was barbed wire because of the macerated appearance of the deep, fleshy wound. A reasonable supply of blood was still oozing at a rate faster than I was comfortable with from a small foal.

‘This is bad news,’ I said softly to Paddy, who stood at my right-hand side.

‘Ah Jaysus, Mary and Joseph,’ implored one of the women from behind.

‘Quiet, woman,’ he growled and I jumped, thinking he was talking to me.

‘Can ye fix it?’ he asked, as though it were that simple.

‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ I replied, as much to myself as in answer. My mind was mentally running through the list of possible complications: blood loss, anaesthetic risk,
tetanus
, infection … I was down to contra-lateral laminitis when he interrupted me.

‘If ye can fix it, do it,’ he commanded.

‘Well, it’s not that simple,’ I began. ‘It would involve major work and a huge amount of aftercare. The whole job will end up costing more than the foal is worth and even with that, she might not make it. You might be better off putting her to sleep.’

I could see I wasn’t convincing him, so I carried on, ‘Even with the best of care, there’s a high risk that she’ll get an infection or even –’

‘Listen te me now,’ he interrupted in a low voice,
bending
in towards me. ‘That there foal is worth more than money te me. If ye can fix it, then fix it.’

With that, he turned away from me, preventing me from expanding any further on the possible outcome or risks. I thought resignedly of the nice consent form that I would usually print out for a job like this, listing all the risks and possible complications, and sighed deeply, bitterly
regretting
the day I had found the mare on the road and earned
the confidence of the Travellers.

With the combination of an extensive wound, a
neonatal
patient and a large crowd, I decided to return to the office for back-up. Having administered some intravenous antibiotics, a protective dose of anti-tetanus and some pain relief, I left with the promise to return as soon as possible.

‘Are you busy?’ I asked Seamus as I returned to the
surgery
with the benefit of a twenty-minute drive to plan my approach.

‘Well, by the looks of it, I’m going to be,’ he replied warily, eyeing the surgical and anaesthetic kits as I pulled them out of the back press.

‘Which do you want to do?’ I asked him, offering him either kit with a grin.

By the time we returned to the halting site, I had filled him in on the story.

He was doubtful. ‘Nasty place to get a wound; too much movement to allow for good healing,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Yes, and she’s only about two weeks old, and it looks like it was barbed wire – probably good and rusty – and there isn’t a stable or anything like it,’ I continued
cheerfully
, now that I had back-up. ‘But sure, they want to try and referral isn’t an option, so what have we to lose?’ I implored him.

‘A lot of wasted time and money,’ he retorted grimly.

Although by now I felt competent when anaesthetising small animals, a young foal was a different story. I was glad to hand over to Seamus and watched as he carefully drew from a vial of valium and mixed it with a minute amount of ketamine.

My request for hot water was silently fulfilled with a ‘Right so,’ as Paddy nodded almost imperceptibly at
John-Joe
.

‘You ready to go?’ enquired Seamus.

Within minutes, the little foal lay peacefully on the sparse grass that was to serve as the operating theatre.

Happy that Seamus was there to supervise the even, deep breathing of the patient and look after crowd control, I was soon engrossed in the ravaged remains of the
hind-limb
. Having filled the large wound with almost a full tube of gel, I carefully clipped away what remained of the fine coat, most of which was caked in clotted blood.
Methodically
, I washed away any obvious dirt and debris from the exposed area. Only then did I begin to examine the extent of the damage to the leg. The large flap of skin that been pulled down in ragged strips by the barbed wire was
obviously
long since devoid of blood supply. ‘That’ll have to go,’ I muttered to myself, oblivious to the apprehension of my onlookers.

Carefully, I trimmed away the large skin flap, pleased to see oozing of fresh blood from the edge where I cut away. Once the skin was trimmed of any dead tissue, I inspected the lower layers. One of the main muscles was torn, almost completely, exposing the main blood supply to the
hind-limb
, which was, thankfully, still intact. As the wound was so fresh, it was only a matter of some careful suturing to restore the muscle to normality. In an older horse, I would have been much more concerned that the weight of a mature animal might be enough to break down my careful repair, but in a foal such as this one, which I estimated to
weigh no more than sixty or seventy kilograms, I was somewhat optimistic. It would have been best to cast the leg to prevent excessive movement, but due to the
position
of the injury, that wasn’t possible. At the very least, I would have liked to keep the foal confined, to limit the usual antics of an enthusiastic youngster. Looking around the bleak expanse of wasteland around the halting site, I knew this wasn’t going to happen either.

With the muscle repaired, I turned my attention to the rest of the wound which by now was looking decidedly healthier.

‘Would one of you mind holding up the fluid bag for me?’ I enquired of my silent audience, nodding at the gallon of saline to which I had attached a giving set.

There was a lot of mumbling and shuffling before Paddy himself came forward. ‘Just hold the bag up high and squeeze it as hard as you can to ensure an adequate flow,’ I added. He was an efficient assistant as he
wordlessly
directed the flow of sterile fluid over the damaged tissue, while I swabbed and trimmed away any dirt or damaged tissue.

I prodded and probed with a forceps, carefully
searching
for any further damage. On a couple of occasions the forceps opened into a tiny dead end where a barb of wire had torn through the connective tissue surrounding the muscle body. At last I was satisfied that as much
contamination
as possible had been washed away.

Engrossed as I was in the fiddly task, it wasn’t until I noticed the flow of saline slowing down that I looked back towards my assistant. Paddy, who looked to be a sturdy,
well-built man, was red in the face with exertion as he struggled to hold the second gallon bag of saline up over his head.

‘Paddy, would you mind giving Seamus a hand now because we’re almost ready to let the foal come around. If you could stay at the head in case she tries to get up too quickly,’ I asked him. ‘You can give the bag to someone else,’ I added, relieving him of his burden without
embarrassing
him too much.

Another person was silently pushed forward to continue the task.

My suturing was limited to areas where I could pull enough tissue together to make some attempt to reduce the size of the wound. Painstakingly, I inserted row after row of tiny sutures at several different angles, hoping to draw together the sub-cutaneous tissue and even some skin.

‘Right, so. What do you think of that?’ I asked Seamus, indicating the damaged limb.

‘Well, it’s as much as can be done, but it still has a long way to go,’ he replied cautiously.

I arched my back slowly, until the dull ache receded before straightening myself up off my knees into a
standing
position.

‘She won’t be long now,’ said Seamus, flicking at the corner of the foal’s eyelid, watching as the enormous black eyelashes flickered in response, an indication that the anaesthetic was starting to wear off.

The usual banter that would accompany a moment like this was glaringly absent as my attempts to engage the
Travellers in light conversation failed miserably.

Covering the injury was impossible, but I applied a padded bandage to the lower limb to help prevent
swelling
from the inflammatory fluid which would inevitably build up below the wound. As an afterthought, I applied a similar bandage to the other hind limb to protect it from the extra weight it was going to have to bear for the
duration
of the recovery.

‘Well, that’s all we can do for the moment. Who’s going to be in charge of her now?’ I enquired, knowing that the aftercare for a wound like this was far more important than my own role.