D. E. Larsen, DVM

I was twenty years old, bouncing between school. It would be wrong to say I was struggling, but looking at my grades, you could draw that conclusion. 

In 1963, everyone graduating from high school with an aptitude for math was directed toward engineering. It had not taken me long to realize I wasn’t going to be an engineer. But if not an engineer, then what?

I had started at Oregon Technical Institute. Then, I transferred to Southwestern Community College, then to Colorado State University to try pre-veterinary medicine, and finally back to Southwestern Community College. You can sort of get the picture of a kid who didn’t know what he wanted to do but was having fun doing it.

In 1965, I was admitted to Oregon State University for the fall quarter. Because I spent too much money attending CSU, I decided to take the spring quarter off and work at the cheese factory so I would have plenty of cash for OSU in the fall. My major was still up in the air at that time; maybe zoology sounded good.

That spring, I started working full-time in the Safeway cheese factory in Myrtle Point. I had worked there part-time while in school and full-time in the summers since I was a junior in high school. It was an excellent job for a student. I made more money than working in a plywood mill, and it was much safer than working in the woods for a logging company. I could pay for all my college expenses with this job.

The thing I failed to consider in my well-thought-out plan was the fact that this was 1965. The military was in the middle of a buildup in troop numbers due to increasing involvement in the Vietnam War.

It was a month after I started working full-time that the letter arrived. When I came through the front door and set my lunch box on the kitchen counter, Mom handed me the letter, looking nervous.

“This came for you today,” Mom said.

I was twenty years old and not used to getting mail addressed to me. A note or two from girls in junior high and high school. Most of which I tended to ignore. But nothing that looked official.

This letter looked official; it was from the Selective Service office in Coos Bay.

I opened the envelope carefully and unfolded the enclosed letter. It was addressed to Mr. David E. Larsen. The writing that followed started simply,

“Greetings,” It said.

The rest of it was a blur in my memory, but basically, it said I had been selected and ordered to attend a physical exam to determine my qualifications for induction into the armed forces.

I set the letter on the table. Mom was still standing there, wringing her hands as she always did when nervous.

“I guess I didn’t plan on this,” I said. “I guess my student deferment doesn’t allow for time off to work.”

“What does it say?” Mom asked. “Can I read it?”

“It says I have to go take a draft physical next week,” I said as I handed Mom the letter.

So the Selective Service folks had my future etched in stone. I had a day off in a couple of days and used that time to travel to Coos Bay and talk with an Army recruiter. That was the best decision of my young adult life.

“Now that you have talked to me before taking your physical exam, you have the option to enlist rather than go through the draft,” the recruiter explained. “That allows me to give you some guarantees. I’m going to give you some handouts from a branch that’s looking for people like you. They want someone a little older than the average high school kid. Having a couple of years of college is a big plus. The Army Security Agency is probably right up your alley. You have to test well, but we will have that information after your physical. But if I can get you in with them, you will be pleased. The only hang-up right now is that they require a four-year enlistment. But, you know, that extra two years might save your life.”

The following Monday, I found myself standing out front of the Coos Bay Post Office with about twenty-five other young guys, waiting for the Greyhound bus that was going to take us to Portland.

The entire draft board came out the front door of the Post Office. The lady in the lead was carrying a stack of folders. She came right up to me and stopped. Then she shoved that stack of folders into my stomach.

“Here are everyone’s records,” she said. “Your in charge!”

“Who the hell elected me to be in charge?” I asked.

“Mr. Larsen, you are the oldest one here,” she said. “And you should know what that means. Your file will be at the top of the pile when we review the results. Now, when you get to Portland, you cross the street to the YMCA. They will have rooms ready for you. Everyone’s meal tickets are in these folders —take your responsibility seriously. We have a box for you to carry the records with, that way you won’t lose anything.”

The guy behind the lady stepped forward with a box and helped me load the records. We were no more than finished when the bus pulled up. We loaded onto the bus. Lucky for me, I got a seat near the front. It was going to be a five- or six-hour bus ride to Portland.

One guy from Powers sat with me. He had a fake ID and took orders, then made a trip to the liquor store during our quick lunch break at Taft (now Lincoln City). By the time we stopped at McMinnville, the bus driver threatened to kick us off the bus if I didn’t quiet everybody down. My first command position, I guess.

When we arrived in Portland, one of the guys was nearly passed out and had to be carried across the street to the YMCA. We laid him on the floor while everyone signed.

“Now, the guy on the floor has to sign in,” the clerk said.

“Can I sign for him?” I asked. 

“No, he has to sign,” the clerk said again.

So several of us lifted him up and helped him sign the paper. Then we carried him upstairs and laid him in the shower. That was another good decision, because it wasn’t long before he was vomiting.

We all had dinner in the cafeteria and a quick breakfast the following morning. Then, a brisk walk down the street, a couple of blocks to the induction center.

I don’t remember much about the day. The physical was a combination of individual exams, followed by a massive gathering of naked bodies around one room, where the doctors went down the line checking for hernias. “Turn your head and cough.”

Then everyone turned toward the wall. 

“Now, bend over and grab your ankles,” the doctor said. “Hold that position until we tell you to stand.”

The doctors stood in the center of the circle, checking everyone’s rear end. Once that was over, we dressed and started testing.

The room where the tests were given was crowded, and the windows opened to the street outside. There was a lot of street noise and exhaust fumes. It was a miserable time for a bunch of country boys.

After the testing was done, everyone loaded back onto the bus for the long ride home. We arrived in Coos Bay in the dark, and I had to work the next day. I had already lost two days of pay with this testing.

***

I passed the physical and I elected to enlist. I joined the Army Security Agency. The Army proved to be a good thing for me. I excelled in the environment, and had plenty of time to grow up.

After basic training at Fort Ord, California, I spent most of a year in training at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Then I was in South Korea for thirteen months, followed by 18 months in West Germany. Most of my time in West Germany was on TDY pay, so I left the Army with a sizable chunk of change in my pocket.

I got out of the Army three months early to return to school at Oregon State. That first summer, I took a year of Organic Chemistry. I finished my degree with a BS in Zoology in June of 1971. I started Veterinary school at Colorado State University that September.

It was years later when I walked up the hill at Oregon’s Vietnam Memorial. The trail leads through multiple stations with long lists of the names of Oregon’s finest young men that didn’t come home. It was the last station, at the top of the hill, where I read the last plaque through moist eyes. That plaque said, “…Myrtle Point and Sweet Home gave more than their share…!”

I have always felt that that wasn’t the luck of the draw. They were fine young men, and I am sure they would have been the first to step forward.

Photo Credit: Sp4 Clarence Nishihara, Camp Humpherys, South Korea, May 1967.

D. E. Larsen, DVM

George was a large man, and he always seemed impatient. He was a retired police officer from California who moved to Sweet Home and built a new house out on North River Drive.

I had seen Charlie, his Corgi, on several occasions. Charlie was more enjoyable to work with than George.

“How long has Charlie been sick?” I asked.

“He didn’t eat last night,” George said. “I mean, not a bite. I tried to force him a bit, and he acted like he was going to throw up. Then this morning, he passed this foul-smelling diarrhea. Doc, I mean, I haven’t smelled anything worse, and all over my garage floor. He has never done that before.”

I lifted Charlie onto the exam table and placed a thermometer in his rectum. I just glanced over him as I waited for the thermometer. I picked up the skin on the back of his neck, and it was slow to return to normal, a little dehydrated. A couple of lymph nodes were swollen. I opened his mouth wide and looked at his tonsils. They were swollen and red, and his tongue was wrinkled from dehydration. 

I retrieved the thermometer. It showed a temperature of 104°. There was a drop of watery stool at the end of the thermometer. I quickly grabbed a microscope slide from the drawer and let the drop fall onto the slide.

“What do you think, Doc?” George asked.

“Give me a couple of minutes, George,” I said. “I need to get a look at this slide.”

“Come on, Doc, I was watching you. You already have an opinion,” George said. “I spent twenty-some years watching people. I know when they are keeping something to themselves.”

“George, when I see a dog who is not eating, has diarrhea, an elevated temperature, and swollen tonsils,” I said. “In my mind, that dog has salmon poisoning until I prove it otherwise.”

“No way, Charlie has never even seen a salmon,” George said.

“You want to know how many times I have heard that line?” I asked.

“Can bass cause it?” George asked. “I fish a lot. Foster Lake is full of smallmouth bass, and nobody fishes for them. So Charlie is in my boat a lot, but never a salmon.”

“This disease is carried by salmon, trout, and steelhead, not by bass,” I said. “If Charlie is out around the lake, or at the boat ramps, there are a lot of people who clean their fish and fish guts lying around. It doesn’t take much to cause an exposure.”

“Trout?” George asked.

“Yes, trout around here are usually infected,” I said. “It is a pretty complex disease. I will go over it with you after I get a look at this slide.”

“So, if you are pretty sure that this is salmon poisoning, why are you going to look at that slide?” George asked.

“You have a bit of a point,” I said. “The slide can confirm the diagnosis, and that’s important. But there is an old saying among northwest veterinarians that goes something like this: ‘If you see fish, you treat fish.’ Basically, what that means is I am going to treat Charlie like a dog with salmon disease, even if I don’t confirm the disease.”

“So, you are just padding the bill,” George said.

“If you want to look at it that way,” I said. “It’s only a couple of bucks, I could do it for no charge if you like, and add ten dollars somewhere else. It would still be a song compared to your bill at the hospital.”

I added a few drops of flotation solution to the slide, then slipped it onto the microscope stage. It only took a glance to see dozens of Nanophytes fluke eggs covering the slide.

Back in the exam room, I handed George a handout on salmon poisoning.

“That little sample is covered with fluke eggs,” I said. “Charlie has salmon disease. The good thing is, he is early in the course of the disease. Getting some IV fluids and a couple of injections into him, and he will be back to normal in no time. That is, in most cases, a dog will die from salmon disease, despite treatment. But that is rare.”

“While you were at the microscope, I was thinking,” George said. “Last week I  had a guy fishing with me in my boat. He caught a few trout. No, Charlie never ate one, but he did lick up some blood and stuff from the bottom of the boat. Do you think that could have done it?”

“It doesn’t take much,” I said. “I have seen sick dogs from when somebody hoses out a boat or the back of a pickup, and the dog licks up some blood from the driveway.”

“What do we do now?” George asked.

“Best thing is for you to leave Charlie with us overnight,” I said. “We will run a couple of bags of fluids through him, some IV doxycycline, and an injection to eliminate the flukes. I would expect him to be well in the morning, but once in a while it might take a couple of days.”

“Nothing about your place, Doc, but I really don’t want to leave him overnight,” George said. “Can we do this another way?”

“If you can leave Charlie for a few hours so we can get some IV fluids and antibiotics into him, we could send him home and recheck him in the morning,” I said. “That might increase his risk slightly, but in this case, I think we would be fine. The other problem, though, is a housekeeping problem. We have a dehydrated dog with explosive diarrhea. We are going to bring his hydration back to normal, and sometime this afternoon or tonight, he will have a blowout. If that happens in your house, you will have an unbelievable mess to clean up.”

“Charlie would never let that happen,” George said.

“You want to know how many times I have heard that line?” I asked.

“Well, let’s do it that way,” George said. “I can leave him till about four this afternoon. Then I can have him back here in the morning. Do you think that would work?”

We hung onto Charlie and got him started on some IV fluids. I gave him a dose of IV doxycycline and an injection of Droncit for the flukes. The liter of fluid was not quite complete when George returned, so we gave the remainder under his skin over his shoulder blades.

“I will see you in the morning, sometime between nine and ten,” I said as I handed George the leash. “And, I would recommend you let Charlie sleep in the garage tonight, just to be safe.”

“We will see you in the morning, Doc,” George said as he led Charlie out the door.

***

Nine o’clock, and George was at the door with Charlie. Charlie looked bright and alert. George looked a little tired.

“How is he doing this morning?” I asked George.

“He was looking for breakfast. I hope that was a good sign,” George said. “I didn’t know if I should feed him, so he is still hungry.”

We put Charlie on the exam table and gave him a good exam. Things looked great. Sandy came with a couple of bites of bland dog food. Charlie downed it in a single gulp.

“He looks great,” I said. “We will give him another IV injection of doxycycline and send you home with some pills. I think Charlie is well. How did things go last night?”

“You sort of amaze me, Doc,” George said. “You seem to know just what is going to happen. Charlie was feeling pretty good last night, so we decided to let him stay in his bed in the kitchen. Then, about three this morning, my wife and I woke up with a headache. The house smelled so bad that I knew something had happened. I was half expecting to find Charlie dead. When we stepped into the hallway, Charlie had made an unbelievable mess. There was diarrhea all the way down the hall, and even on the walls in a couple of spots. It took us hours to clean it up. My wife is still not talking to me because I didn’t leave Charlie here last night.”

“Will, that is all behind you now,” I said. “Charlie is doing fine, and you shouldn’t have to deal with that again.”

“That handout you gave me said something about lifetime immunity, but with a couple of hedges,” George said.

“Yes, the experts say there are three strains of salmon poisoning,” I said. “So it is possible for a dog to get it three times. I think in most cases, they probably get all three strains at the same time. I have seen a dozen or so cases where dogs have gotten it twice, and I think three dogs that have gotten it three times. However, in the three dogs, at least one infection was based on clinical signs rather than a confirmed diagnosis. So it is just not a good idea to let your guard down. Dogs can live without eating fish.”

“Don’t worry, Doc,” George said. “There is not going to be another trout in my boat.

Photo Credit: Julia Khalimova on Pexels.

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I first experienced a lesson completely devoid of textbooks or blackboards during my first year of veterinary school. I was with Doctor Davis in a horse stall. I learned more in that hour than in any classroom hour in my life.

Dr. Davis had cared for the mules in Merrill’s Marauders’ march across Burma during WWII. He couldn’t carry a library, not even a textbook. He had the knowledge and the will to add to his database when he encountered new problems.

I should not have been surprised when I kept learning things once I started in practice. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. Most of the time, it is called experience.

It came in many forms, and usually at unexpected times. They were lessons that, in most cases, were never forgotten.

Some were simple, common-sense things. Things I should have known from the comic strips I read as a child.

Don’t use a plastic feeding tube on an old goat; he will eat it. I kicked myself on that one as I looked at the missing end of the esophageal feed tube. Thankfully, someone designed the rumen with a reticulum to handle such carelessness.

Other lessons were learned from listening to the voice of past instructors. “If you haven’t accomplished the task in twenty minutes, rethink what you are doing, and try a different way,” Dr. Aness would say.

That voice came to me many times, mostly during difficult deliveries when sweat was dripping off my eyebrows and clouding my vision. I was usually well past twenty minutes before my mind would allow those random thoughts to filter through. I often learned I could accomplish things of my own invention, often these were better techniques that I would continue to use in practice.

Probably the hardest lessons for me to learn in practice, and the most expensive, were in judging people,

Life was simple when and where I grew up. Men were mostly good, and women. But there were a few bad apples. A man’s handshake was stronger than any lawyer’s paper. Once a man was categorized, there was little that could change his position.

It took me a long time to learn that there are men who can look you in the eye, shake your hand, and lie through their teeth.

Ed brought in a dog with a fracture of the femur, the thigh bone, on its left hind leg. The dog had been in the pasture chasing Ed’s horse. Ed shot at him with a twenty-two, trying to scare the dog enough for it to quit chasing the horse.

The problem was that Ed was a poor shot and hit the dog. Probably lucky he didn’t hit the horse. That should have been my first clue. I shook my head in disbelief as Ed told the story. How could anyone be that stupid, I thought.

We reviewed the X-rays of Wolf’s fracture together. I explained that the fragmentation at the fracture site made this a difficult repair. And I explained that it was probably at the edge of my capability with what I had to work with at this clinic. He might be better off seeing Dr. Barclay Slocum in Eugene.

“That might be over my budget,” Ed said.

I thought that was a bit of honesty,

“It is not going to be exactly cheap here,” I said. “And I have to work on a cash or check basis.”

“What do you think your fees will be?” Ed asked.

“I think we will be looking at something between five and six hundred dollars,” I said. I knew this was a high fee for Sweet Home in 1977. Often, if the bill was over one hundred dollars, we would end up talking about euthanasia. “I am going to have to wire those big fragments together, place an intramedullary pin in the bone, and to help stabilize everything, I will use a Kirschner half-splint. That is going to involve a lot of surgery time and a lot of follow-up visits, both surgical and medical.”

“Okay, when can you get it done?” Ed asked.

“I can do the surgery this afternoon,” I said. “If everything goes well, Wolf can go home in the morning. We can get things started if you can leave a check with the front desk.”

“I left my checkbook at home,” Ed said. “Is it okay if I bring it in the morning?”

“Okay,” I said. “I will give you a call when I’m out of surgery, and you need to call in the morning to make sure Wolf is ready to go home. Call about mid-morning.”

“Sure, and I will bring a check in the morning,” Ed said as he extended his hand.

I shook his hand and felt better about the ‘check coming in the morning’ comment.

Surgery went well. It had not been too long since I was in school, so the repair was fresh in my mind, but it was definitely the most difficult fracture repair I had been involved with.

The following morning, Wolf was up and looking for breakfast. He was using the fractured leg more than I would like, but I got him ready to go home.

Ed came to pick him up. No checkbook again.

“I’ve run into some problems, Doc, but I should be able to get you paid at the next visit,” Ed said as he extended his hand again. I shook his hand, knowing that he had probably taken me to the cleaners. I couldn’t undo the surgery, and keeping the dog was not an option for the clinic at this point.

Making a long story short, Ed never paid. Each visit, he had an excuse. When Ed walked out the door the last time with a normal Wolf in tow, he never looked back. The collection agency didn’t have any better luck.

That was a significant loss for a new clinic still working to get our feet on the ground. I wish I had learned, but there were several more episodes very similar to it before I finally realized that not everyone was raised like me.

Photo Credit: Markus Winkler on Pexels