The Yorkshire Vet: Happy memories… of quite a close call - Julian Norton

Towards the end of afternoon surgery on Monday, there was an appointment to see a lame puppy. It was the kind of appointment in which is difficult to predict what will happen. The story involved severe lameness following an encounter with a swinging door.

The bones of a puppy are soft and vulnerable, especially at the growth plates near the ends, but conversely, young creatures have super-powers of healing and do tend to “bounce” so many conditions that appear immediately troublesome can settle down magically within twenty-four hours or so. What would be the story today I wondered as I called in the little Sheltie, his owner and two friends.

I could not have been more surprised by the unexpected aspects of this consultation. After a brief initial assessment, I was confident that the pup had sustained nothing more serious than a strain near the shoulder, where there was some tenderness, but the fact that he was walking around the room with impunity and not a trace of lameness immediately lifted the initial mood of concern. Then, things got more interesting. The owner had brought her friend along, who introduced herself to me as “Suzanne.” I must have looked blank, because the next thing she said was, “You don’t recognise me, do you?” Apologetically, I shook my head and asked for some clues. I only needed one clue for the memories to come flooding back. Suzanne explained how she used to work in the veterinary practice in Wakefield, where I spent my formative years as a budding vet. She recalled, with perfect clarity, an incident which occurred thirty-eight years ago, during my first ever visit to a clinic. I’d kindly been allowed to spend the Thursday and Friday of the half-term holiday doing work experience at the practice and I also have vivid memories of those two days. As I arrived, the senior vet, Peter Rhodes, was rushing out of the building. “Don’t take your coat off!” he bellowed, “You’re coming with me. We’ve got a house visit to do.” What I didn’t know was the nature of this house visit. There was an elderly dog in a bad way which needed to be euthanased. It was a brutal introduction to veterinary practice and a stark lesson that sadness is never far away.

The two days passed in a flash and the final case I witnessed was even more memorable: a bitch who needed a caesarean section. I stayed late to watch the drama and I remember catching the last bus back to Castleford buzzing with excitement. But I’d also almost made my first major blunder, which Suzanne remembered in as much detail as I did.

“I was doing the anaesthetic and Peter was operating, you were standing there with your eyes wide with amazement,” she recalled. I was already grinning because I knew exactly what came next. “And then the bitch took a big gasp and the uterus bulged out of the abdomen towards you.” Her description was absolutely accurate, and I can still conjure the image of the swollen, pink viscera toppling towards me. Out of instinct, I reached towards them, intent on saving the day. This will end badly if all the insides spill onto the floor, I thought. Of course, now I know that sterility is critical to the success of surgery and also that the insides of our patients are actually attached, making it very unlikely that they’d all land on the floor. Suzanne continued her recollection, “Both Peter and I shouted ‘NO!!’ in unison!” Disaster was averted.

But on that day, as sixteen year-old me headed to Wakefield bus station late in the evening, I became convinced that veterinary medicine would be my vocation in life. Today, in the consult room, we could have reminisced for hours.