Vet Among the Pigeons (12 page)

John-Joe came forward with a miniature version of himself a step behind. ‘Well, it’s John-Joe Junior’s foal, so I suppose we’ll be looking after her.’

‘Wow! A foal of your own,’ I replied in surprise to the young lad, half hidden behind his father’s coat.

‘Got it for me Confirmation,’ came the reply. He was obviously bursting with pride as his chest puffed up and he took a step forward.

‘Well, we’ll have to take extra good care of her, so. I would really like to confine her in a small paddock,’ I began, thinking of the carefully sutured muscle, ‘but on the other hand, walking around will help to keep the
swelling
down. Will she lead for you?’ I asked the young lad as he was by now brave enough to meet my eye.

‘Oh be God and she will, Miss, if I folly ’er on behind the mare,’ he confirmed, a determined look in his eye.

‘Well, the more you lead her around the better she’ll be,’ I told him.

By the time I had finished going through the daily wound care, the foal was up, wobbling precariously as she tried to readjust herself. I was pleased to see that the offending limb was touching the ground with each
faltering
step.

I had cleared the site of my temporary theatre and was packing up to go when I heard Seamus saying to John-Joe, ‘We’ll be needing a few bob, so.’

Paddy was quick to reply. ‘Give the man there his money.’

A figure was negotiated and a wad of twenty-euro notes, the thickness of a telephone directory, was pulled out.

‘I always knew we were in the wrong job,’ said Seamus to me as soon as I joined him in the car, having promised to call back in the morning.

The next morning saw one of many calls that I made to the Murphys over the following weeks. Luckily, their road was one we passed frequently on our daily calls, so after a few days, I took to dropping in whenever I was in the area instead of sticking to pre-booked times. John-Joe junior, or JJ, as I soon found out he was called, became my
permanent
shadow, mysteriously showing up every time I arrived. Although I was always followed, at a distance, by a straggle of his young comrades, it was only ever JJ who spoke to me. For the first week, the wound continuously discharged a sticky yellow fluid as the body derided itself of remaining unhealthy tissue.

‘I don’t like the look of that there stuff, Missis,’ JJ would comment, nodding his head wisely.

‘Don’t be worrying about it,’ I would tell him and try to explain how the body was getting rid of all the bad bits. ‘As soon as all the bad stuff is gone, the wound will start to heal,’ I assured him, seeing the constant doubt in his eyes.

‘Smell it,’ I told him. ‘There’s no poison in the blood there,’ I continued, well aware of the Travellers’ aversion to the all-encompassing malady of ‘poison in the blood’.

I showed him how to clean the wound, supervising the boiling of the kettle in the cluttered, yet tidy caravan into which I was hesitantly invited.

‘Stick your hand in there now,’ I invited him so that he would know the correct water temperature as the clean bucket of water cooled.

The foal became accustomed to the repeated washing of the leg, as she stood obediently, tied to a tap at a
discarded
bath in the yard. JJ was a diligent student and became quite meticulous, waiting for the crusted
discharge
to soften before gently wiping it away. Before each cleaning, the hairless skin below the wound would be copiously covered with petroleum jelly to prevent scalding of the baby-soft tissue.

When JJ had become proficient at cleaning the wound, I showed him how to change the supportive bandage on the leg, which he carried on doing at regular intervals.

After the first week, I began to call less often as the wound had stopped discharging and was now, ever so slowly, beginning to heal. With each visit, I carefully
studied
the outlines of the wound and could see the pale, thin, hairless margin gradually beginning to close in over the large triangle of what looked like healthy granulation
tissue. With the combination of JJ’s administrations, the healing powers of a young animal and the merciful absence of flies, we were beginning to win the battle.

‘What d’ye think of ’er now, Missis?’ became the
opening
question every time I called.

Although I continued to remind JJ that complications could still arise, I myself was becoming quietly optimistic. With the skill of generations of folklore, Paddy confidently assured me that the warm weather would not come until late that season. I hoped he was right as it would give us the two months that I estimated it would take the wound to heal completely. Once the warm weather came, we would be plagued by the intrusion of flies who would gorge themselves on the feast of flesh and lay
innocent-looking
eggs which would hatch into maggots and burrow into the tender flesh, effectively putting an end to all our good work.

By now, I reckoned that JJ had all the skills he needed to carry on with the foal with only occasional supervision. I noticed that the vet wraps had been changed to strips of cloth, which, although far from the ideal bandaging
material
, were always clean and carefully applied when I checked them.

Often I drove by to see JJ, or very rarely one of the other lads, leading the foal around the field in lackadaisical,
haphazard
patterns as though they had spent the afternoon at the task. Only the slightest lameness gave any indication of her wound. Despite the severity of the injury, the foal
continued
to grow and thrive.

I had almost stopped worrying about my patient when I
got a call late one afternoon. One of the local welfare groups had received a complaint from a concerned member of the public about an ill-treated, injured foal.

‘The foal is out there in the halting site, the one up past the factory,’ said Kevin, the inspector on duty.

Although most of the staff were genuine,
well-intentioned
people, Kevin was new to the group and seemed be trying too hard to prove himself – and to the wrong people. In my limited experience of him, I found him to be more interested in the accent of the owner than the condition of the animal under investigation, and his knowledge of animal matters often left much to be desired.

‘You mean Murphys’ place?’ I questioned, as in all my visits I hadn’t come across any other foal, though I didn’t for a minute associate the complaint with ‘the filly’ as she was always called.

‘Yes. I think that’s the place,’ replied Kevin. ‘Apparently there is a very badly injured piebald foal being dragged around the field all day by some kids. This lady said that they are at it every time she passes.’

‘A piebald filly foal?’ I questioned, despairing yet again at the ignorance that sometimes makes supposed
do-gooders
rush to the aid of an animal that was managing perfectly well without them. ‘If it’s the one I’m thinking about, it’s one that got badly cut as a young foal,’ I told Kevin, ‘but I’ve been treating her for the past two months. The young lad that owns her is an absolute cracker. All that “dragging her around the field” has probably saved her life.’

‘But this lady,’ continued Kevin, sounding slightly
disappointed
that the drama might be plucked from his hands, ‘was adamant that the animal in question is lame and needs to be taken away for proper care.’

‘Of course the foal is lame,’ I replied wearily. ‘So would the “lady” be if she had a deep, open wound on her leg. Listen, Kevin, those young lads are playing a blinder with that foal. Seamus and I were fairly cagey about treating her in the first place, she was so badly injured. With all the work the young lad has put into her, she is doing way better than I thought. The way she’s going, she’s going to make a complete recovery.’

‘Well, I suppose if you’re sure, we’ll let it go for the moment, but I’ll just pay a visit out to them to keep an eye on them anyway.’

‘Kevin,’ I replied in even, measured tones, ‘that foal is under my care and is being looked after one hundred
percent
. You don’t need to call out to her.’

‘Well, we’ll keep an eye on them, anyway. The lady who reported them was adamant that the foal was in
distress
. She has a very big yard on the far side of the hill.’

I tried to get back out to the halting-site that evening, but the never-ending backlog of spring kept me away that day and the next. I wasn’t worried as I knew all was going well. It was just reaching twilight when I pulled in on the Friday evening. I was surprised that JJ didn’t join me on the driveway and the sketchy silhouette of the various families outlined by the light of the camp fire stayed put.

My usual greeting was left unanswered and JJ stood, eyes cast down to the ground. ‘What’s up, JJ? Is the filly
okay?’ I called out to him, as a knot grew in my stomach. If we were going to have a problem with the wound, I had thought it would have happened before now.

I was surprised at the aggression in Paddy’s tone as he spat out at me. ‘You tell us how she is. Your friend that took her away should know.’

‘My friend? That took her away?’ I replied in genuine bewilderment.

‘Came with a box yesterday and told us he was taking her away to be looked after.’

‘He took the foal way!’ I repeated stupidly, conscious of the deep well of anger building up inside me. ‘Who took her away? What friend of mine?’ I demanded, noticing out of the side of my eye that young JJ was standing, fists clenched by his side, tears streaming down his face.

‘That Kevin what’s-his-name. Said he’d been talking te ye,’ shouted Paddy, not noticing my reaction.

‘Listen here, Paddy,’ I replied. ‘Kevin, whatever-
his-name
-is is no friend of mine and yes, he did talk to me and I told him the filly was being well looked after and that there was no need for him to get involved.’

The silence that followed as Paddy, JJ and the rest of the clan struggled to believe me was broken only by the
crackling
and sparks of an old section of dried-out wood on the fire that seemed to match the tension between us.

‘Why’ I continued after a few moments ‘would I get them to take the foal away now? If I’d had any worries wouldn’t I have got them to take her six weeks ago?’

The impasse was broken as JJ crossed over from behind the fire to where I stood.

‘They couldn’t even load her right, Missis,’ he informed me. ‘Made a right bollix of it they did, fussing at ’er and shoving ’er when all she needed was to let her folly in behind the mare. Let out a right kick at yer man, she did,’ he carried on, obviously proud of his charge.

‘Go on with ye,’ growled Paddy at JJ, but without the usual gruffness of tone.

Despite the tension, I had to quell the bubble of
laughter
that rose within me at the thought of the little filly giving as good as she got.

‘Paddy, leave it with me. I’ll sort it out, I promise you,’ I assured him.

He stared at me in the bright glow of the fire. ‘I’ll believe ye, boss. Ye’r always as good as yer word,’ he declared.

As I turned away I hid a smile at the promotion in the eyes of the Travellers to being the ‘boss’.

The next morning, I headed up to the office where Kevin worked before going to the surgery. What Seamus didn’t know about wasn’t going to worry him, I thought to myself, at least not until it was all over anyway.

Kevin was skulking in behind the reception area when I arrived and quickly tried to make his way out the back door when he saw me coming.

‘Where is she?’ I demanded.

‘She? Who’s she? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You know well who I’m talking about. Where’s the
piebald
filly?’

‘Oh her,’ he replied airily. ‘You needn’t worry about her. We have had one of our other vets out to have a look at
her already. She’s in good hands.’

‘Kevin,’ I said, through clenched teeth, taking one, two, and a few more deep breaths before continuing, ‘I am treating that foal. After this evening’s surgery, I’m going out to the halting-site to check on her, like I do a few days a week and have done for the past six weeks. You just make sure she’s there,’ I finished, not bothering to wait for his reply.

On the way back to the office, I made a few calls to the other local vets. The first two knew nothing about it and I left a message for the third, who rang me back an hour later.

‘A little piebald foal,’ he confirmed when I asked if he was treating any animals for the welfare group. ‘I went up to one there yesterday, all right. Bad old wound on the hind leg, but it seemed to be doing nicely to me.’

He commiserated when I told him the story. ‘Listen, whatever you want to do just let me know and I’ll back you on it. Whoever is looking after her is doing a good job.’

There was no need to ring him back. That evening, I pulled in to the halting-site again. From the entrance, the scene was the same – the outline of silhouettes in the bright glow of the campfire, but this time, a small figure came running out to meet me.

‘She’s back, boss! She’s back!’ he roared at me from
half-way
down the drive.

The filly foal never looked back. Before the first of the flies started, the wound had fully closed over. I didn’t see her after that for a long time until one autumn evening when I called by to look at one of the other horses. The
little filly was, by then, quite a substantial filly and as I made my way over to her, she turned her hind-quarters to me and lashed out in high-spiritedness before taking off at a gallop, without the slightest trace of a limp.

‘B
ase to bald eagle,’ came the familiar tones over the phone. ‘Bald eagle to base,’ I replied automatically. ‘What’s the crack, Sean?’

‘I have another one for you,’ he replied.

‘Another buzzard … or a real bald eagle?’ I enquired, suspending my disbelief.

‘No. Nothing as fancy as that,’ he laughed. ‘It’s a turkey cock.’

‘A turkey cock! What do you want to do with a turkey cock? How about a barbecue?’ I asked. ‘I could manage that all right.’

‘This is a serious stud turkey that a mate of mine owns. Problem is, he’s gone lame – looks like a case of bumble foot to me.’

‘Bumble foot?’ repeated Donal incredulously when I
told him that night. ‘He’s having you on. What the hell is bumble foot?’

‘It’s an infection in the foot. Apparently his friend is very knowledgeable about his poultry and has been treating it for weeks, but it’s getting worse. He needs surgery.’

‘So you’re going to operate on a lame turkey cock?’ Donal stated. ‘With bumble foot! What does Seamus think of that?’

When I told him the next morning, Seamus was equally unimpressed. ‘What did you plan on charging for it?’ he asked, already having a fair idea.

‘Well, it’s a turkey. I can’t really go to town on him.’

‘Oh, great! Is he a cousin of the buzzard? Are they going to give us a load of repeat business or bring in new clients or something?’

‘Well, I’ll do it in my own time, so you won’t even see it here. Unless, of course, you’d like to do the anaesthetic …’ I trailed off, noting the lack of enthusiasm in his face.

So, Sunday morning saw just myself, Sean and Roger the turkey cock preparing for my maiden venture into turkey surgery. Molly’s biggest plastic toy box served as a ‘
knock-down
’ box into which I had drilled a hole for the
anaesthetic
tube to be placed. Roger wasn’t overly impressed as we bundled him in, but soon his broad neck flopped to one side as the anaesthetic overcame him. Before he knew it, he was plucked and prepped on the surgery table and I have to admit that he did look slightly incongruous, draped in surgical green instead the usual oven bag.
However
, it was no laughing matter when I turned my attention to the infected foot which had led him here. Although
Sean’s friend was a dedicated bird man and had
methodically
cleaned the foot and dosed him with antibiotics, the necrotic, angry-looking tissue seemed to have won out. As I cut through the worst of it, I noticed that my scalpel blade induced no haemorrhage, indicating that the tissue was dead. I trimmed away the devitalised flesh further and
further
and couldn’t help thinking of the old advice: ‘First, do no harm’ that had been drilled into us.

‘I don’t know if this is going anywhere,’ I said to Sean as I trimmed away still more tissue.

‘Ah, that’s what you said about the bald eagle and look at him,’ he replied. ‘Go on! He’ll be grand,’ he assured me with the confidence of one who wasn’t holding the knife.

‘Well, if he can’t get around when he wakes up, I’m
putting
him down,’ I said as much to myself as to Sean,
knowing
that the owner had already signed the appropriate consent form.

Eventually, I came to oozing blood, although the tissue still looked very angry. Having flushed the whole area with two litres of heated saline, I packed it carefully with the antibiotic beads I had prepared that morning. Finally, I sutured together what remained of the web as best I could.

When he came around, Roger gobbled away to himself, and to my surprise didn’t seem too put out by the whole affair. I made a note to myself to add to the growing
anecdotal
evidence list in relation to the use of the anaesthetic and anti-inflammatory medications in turkey cocks.

I laughed to myself as I filled out the discharge
instructions
and it took every ounce of my self-control not to write ‘twenty minutes to the pound’ on his aftercare sheet.

Despite my misgivings, Roger, after numerous repeat visits to dress the wound, eventually returned to his former glory and bore his scars proudly without any obvious signs of pain or lameness. Seamus wasn’t overly impressed when we eventually did get payment in the form of an oven-ready offspring the following Christmas.

Sadly, it seemed that that was to be the zenith of my avian career. From then on things went downhill.

By coincidence, we went through a phase of getting a lot of bird clients in the Blue Cross. I assumed this was less to do with my brilliance as a turkey surgeon some
forty-odd
miles away and more to do with the fact that no-one else in north Dublin was interested in treating them! Although the Blue Cross was, by its nature, limited in many respects, we generally managed to do what was needed for the multitude of dogs, cats and other furries that came our way. Feathered patients, however, are a lot more
susceptible
to stress, which meant that the Blue Cross mobile clinic wasn’t really ideal.

In an attempt to limit death from the sheer stress of queuing on the side of a roundabout alongside an array of natural predators, we included a ‘birds first’ policy in our general triage system. Despite the protest from the rest of the queue, Eamon took to ushering the birds first into the dubious safety of the clinic where we could get them treated, and hopefully home, before they died of shock.

One Wednesday evening, having muddled my way through a couple of canaries with mites, a budgie with an overgrown beak and a magpie fledgling that had fallen out of a nest, Eamon gave a shout through the door, ‘One
more for you out here!’ A collection of assorted mutts and moggies had piled up inside the tiny waiting room at the end of the van so we opened the other door to allow the last bird through. Out of a poky cage, covered in a child’s furry
blanket
, came a spectacular-looking African Grey Parrot.

‘It’s only ’is travelling cage,’ the owner assured me.

‘What’s up with him?’ I asked. ‘He looks the picture of health to me.’

‘Ah, sure, he’s in great form, so ’e is. It’s just dat ’is nails need clippin’.’

‘That’s no problem,’ I assured him, relieved that it was nothing too demanding or complicated for such a valuable bird. As I hunted in the drawer for the nail clippers, I told him, ‘You know, you really should bring a bird like this to a private vet – this clinic is for welfare cases only and we’re not really set up for birds.’ I knew that the cost of the bird could well have paid for the entire clinic for at least a month. Ideally, I would have sent him away, but then the parrot would have had to go through the stress of yet another veterinary visit. ‘I’ll clip his nails for you this time, as he is here now, but in future a private clinic would be better if you can afford it.’

‘Nah! Hector won’t mind dis,’ he said, indicating the crowd outside with a jerk of his head. ‘Anyway, I did bring ’im to some posh place out dere in de village bu’ dey told me not te bring ’im back no more.’

‘Oh, is that right?’ I questioned, wondering what I had let myself in for. Parrots are notorious for biting, although this guy did seem to be well handled. ‘And why was that?’

‘Dunno,’ he replied and let the matter drop.

Reluctantly, I picked up the clippers and took a firm hold of the claw while Hector waited, innocently perched on his owner’s arm. It was only when I raised the clippers towards him that he emitted a high-pitched shriek like a child in mortal danger. As I jumped, I dropped his leg and at that moment, he took off and sailed over my head,
landing
with a crash on the ledge containing our supply of
tablets
and injectables. Immediately he took off again, this time landing on the bandages which he promptly began to pick up with his beak and hurl with ferocity at the far wall. All the time, the child-like shriek continued. I could hear a mutter of discontent emerging from the waiting room – I was sure they were wondering who, or what, was being murdered. When the racket continued for a few more minutes, some brave soul decided to see what was going on. I watched in horror as Hector caught sight of the door being opened – and his route to freedom. In a flash, while Hector’s attention was nailed to his escape route, Eamon managed to throw a large towel over him, just before the man opening the door slammed it in his face, obviously not brave enough to face an enraged parrot.

I thought that with our patient trapped we’d be able to do the job and get him home to relative safety, but as soon as I began to clip the nails, he started to hurl a rally of abuse at me with a selection of language that considerably broadened my English vocabulary. The faster I clipped, the more and the louder he shrieked at me, while his owner got increasingly red-faced.

‘I got ’im offa me mate,’ he assured me. ‘I wudn’t ’ave learned him dat!’

By the time the ordeal was over, the roars of verbal abuse of the parrot were almost drowned out by the
convulsions
of laughter erupting from the crowded waiting room next door. I was sweating by the time he left and oblivious to the sense of mirth and gaiety around the clinic. All I could see was the queue stretching almost as far as the roundabout.

With a sigh, I braced myself to open the door to the now rowdy waiting room as I let out a faint-hearted, ‘Next, please.’

The next few weeks were mercifully bird-free, but one particularly wet and windy night we were half-way through the clinic when someone started beating down the doors. At first we ignored it, assuming that whoever it was would take their place in the queue. As the racket continued, however, Gordon glanced out the window and quickly turned back to me saying, ‘You might want to let these ones in.’ I assumed Gordon had good reason and readily agreed. A young couple, no more than twenty years old or so, stood before me holding a canary. Much and all as I worried about birds getting stressed at the clinic, this one was to set new standards. Although our avians usually arrived in a wide spectrum of pet-carriers, ranging from posh cages to old shoe boxes, this
unfortunate
canary came securely enclosed in no more than the hand of its loving owner.

I quickly subdued my outrage as I realised that the longer we delayed, the less the unfortunate canary’s chances were. I didn’t even bother to comment, but noticed Eamon rummaging among the presses for a box.

It got worse. The young owners launched into a detailed description of the bird’s history. Bewildered as I was at their ignorance, it took a few moments for me to realise that the canary was, far from being in prime health, in fact, dead! As the girl waved her arms around, vividly gesticulating while she told their story, the tiny yellow head flopped feebly from side to side. I glanced over at Eamon and Gordon to find that the only ones who hadn’t noticed were the owners. It was then that I saw the slightly glazed eyes and intense concentration of both the girl and her partner. I had to break her off, mid-flight, to explain that far from being fit and well, the bird was actually dead. It took a few moments for the stark reality to dawn and then, pausing as though to gather breath, she wailed at me: ‘Ye’v killed me bleedin’ bird. Some bloody vet you are. Der wasn’t a bother on ’im till you gotta hold of ’im.’

At that point I had had enough and told her in no
uncertain
terms that I had never had a hold of him and that it was the hold
she
had on him that had killed him. A flash of argument followed during which neither myself nor Gordon nor Eamon could convince her of anything other than I had killed her bird. She stomped out of the clinic, still clutching the lifeless form and shouted out at the expectant crowd, ‘Yez might as well go home. Dat bleedin’ eejit of a vet just killed me bird.’

That seemed to put a halt to my bird cases for a while as I was then deemed to be ‘bleedin’ useless’ with birds, but, strangely, the one group of bird people who until then had stayed away, suddenly began to appear. The pigeon
fanciers
started to come, although I regularly assured them that
I really knew little to nothing about pigeons. Most of them I managed to dispatch on the basis that our limited range of drugs did not include many pigeon products, but one guy got cute. He had already been to his local pet shop, where the owner had given him a non-prescription, oral supplement to dose his birds. The problem was, he assured me, that the pigeons didn’t like the taste of it and would I mind dosing them for him? I was inclined to refuse, but when he offered what I thought was a
considerable
donation for the clinic, I reluctantly agreed. In he arrived with a wicker basket containing some forty pigeons of varying colours. ‘Which one,’ I asked him, ‘is to be dosed?’

‘The whole bleedin’ lota dem, luv,’ came his reply as he thrust the first one towards me.

I decided it would be quicker to do it than argue with him, but ten minutes later I was beginning to wonder as one after another the pigeons gagged and gasped as I dosed them. Finally, I got to the last one and stopped to do a quick tidy-up of feathers and pigeon droppings when the door opened and in he arrived with another basketful.

It was only when I was half-way through the third batch that I noticed a bit of a commotion going on outside. The usual flow of traffic seemed to be interrupted and the crowd outside, although usually boisterous, seemed to be in uniquely high spirits. I glanced out and noticed a pigeon fly by and then another, and then another.

I took one look at my wayward client, who stared back at me with open arms and said, ‘Well, they are homin’ birds, luv. Sure, they’ll make their own way home. I
promised te meet a mate in de pub before nine o’clock.’

When the clinic finally ended almost an hour late, the homing pigeons, whether confused by the local
geography
or still stunned by the dose they had got, were no further towards their intended destination. As I packed the car, a flock of pigeons circled around me and both Eamon and Gordon fell about the place laughing at my face as a variety of fantails, white tips and piebalds perched on the car and deposited their droppings around me.