Is He Dead Yet

D. E. Larsen, DVM

We were right in the middle of a story when the phone rang. Rod was closest, so he picked up the call. Everyone else on night duty tried to look busy. Our last couple of years in Vet School was a little more strenuous than regular college. Clinic rotations made it like an 8:00 to 5:00 job—actually, an 8:00 to 5:00 job that started about 6:30 and lasted until 7:00. Then every couple of months, you had a week of night duty with 10 seniors and 10 juniors. Most of the time, we were busy, but there were many slow hours. We were at the hospital until midnight, then on call for the rest of the night.

Rod hung the phone up and called Dr. Snow on the intercom. We had two interns on nights with us, one large animal intern, and one small animal intern.

“Dr. Snow, you have a turtle on the way in for an emergency exam,” Rod said on the intercom. “The lady wants to know if it is alive or not.”

Several of us headed to the small animal section to help with the call. This sounded interesting.

When Hazel and Matt came through the door, they actually had a small desert tortoise in Hazel’s hands. She was supporting it chin as the tortoise appeared limp.

We ushered them into an exam room and placed the tortoise on the exam table. I put a towel under the tortoise and positioned its legs and head in what appeared to be a comfortable position.

Dr. Snow came in and introduced himself. Dr. Snow was known to the students to be sort of a flake. A flake, but also pretty knowledgable about species that we would never see in a practice situation.

“Tell me about Henry’s problem,” Dr. Snow said to Hazel.

“Well, last night, when I was feeding him his vegetables, I noticed that he had a little bit of a runny nose,” Hazel said. “He has never been sick since we have had him, which is about 3 years.”

“So last night he had a runny nose, and tonight he looks dead,” Dr. Snow said. “What happened between then and now?”

“I knew I had to give him some medicine last night,” Hazel said. “I searched through our stockpile of old medication. The only thing I could find was some Phenobarbital.  It was given to help me sleep when I was sick a couple of years ago. Or I think that is what it was given to me for. Anyway, that is what I gave him. But I thought he was smaller than me, so I cut the pill in half.”

“You gave him 125 mg of Phenobarbital for his runny nose?” Dr. Snow asked.

“Yes, that is about right,” Hazel said. “Do you think that was alright?”

“Looking at Henry, I would guess, No, that was not alright,” Dr. Snow said.

“I just want to know for sure if he is dead before we bury him,” Matt said.

“The problem is that Phenobarbital is known to put some reptiles into hibernation,” Dr. Snow said. “We might have some difficulty deciding between death and hibernation.”

We turned Henry over and listened, but could not hear any heart sounds. We clipped a toenail and did get a drop of blood.

“Maybe we could try to get an electrocardiogram on him,” Dr. Snow said. 

“Oh, how much is that going to cost?” Hazel asked. “We are on a pretty limited budget, that is why we tried to treat his runny nose ourselves.”

“A phone call would have been a good idea,” Dr. Snow said. “We are pretty free with information around here. Whoever may not have known what to give a tortoise for a respiratory infection, but they would have known that Phenobarbital was not a good idea.”

“What are we to do now?” Hazel asked.

“Okay, I will let these students take Henry in the back, see if they can detect a heartbeat,” Dr. Snow said. “If we do that, you have to promise you will not tell anyone here in the hospital that I did that, or I will get into trouble. Do you agree with that?”

“That sounds fair,” Hazel said. “How are they going to find a heartbeat?”

“We will try to get an electrocardiogram on him,” Rod said. “If we use some needles as electrodes, that should be pretty sensitive.”

“Okay, but will you hurt him,” Hazel said.

“He is going to have a few needle pokes,” I said. “But in his condition, he won’t feel a thing. We will have him back here in a couple of minutes.”

We picked up Henry carefully and moved him back to the treatment room. We used aluminum needles, poked through the skin, and hooked the leads of the ECG to the needle hubs.

“We just need to do a lead two,” Rod said. “Any wiggle will mean he might be alive.”

There was not much on the tracing. But every once in awhile, there was a small blimp. 

“What does an ECG on a tortoise in hibernation look like?” I asked.

We settled the question by handing the strip to Dr. Snow when we returned Henry to the exam room.

“There is not much here to suggest he is alive,” Dr. Snow said. “But I have to admit, I do see a regular deflection that occurs about 2 or 3 times a minute. I think Henry is in very deep hibernation. I doubt is he will wake up from it.”

“Just what are you saying, young man,” Matt asked.

“I think Henry is near death,” Dr. Snow said. “I don’t think he is going to wake up. I think he will be dead by this time tomorrow.”

“So, I guess I should plan to bury him tomorrow,” Matt said.

“But what if you are wrong, Doctor,” Hazel.

“The other thing to do is to take Henry home, make him comfortable on the kitchen counter, and if he starts to smell, you can feel better about burying him,” Dr. Snow said.

Photo by Ludvig Hedenborg from Pexels

The Angry Awn

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I glanced up the hill 100 yards, where Derek was moving through some high grass. There was a chill in the early morning of October air. This was the first weekend that I was free to hunt. We were carefully covering my favorite clearcut on the backside of Buck Mountain.

As I watched, Derek suddenly grabbed his face and buckled to the ground. It took me a couple of minutes to climb the hill to where he was on his knees, with his hand over his eye.

“What’s wrong,” I asked as I approached through the chest-high dry grass.

“Aw, I have something in my eye,” Derek said.

I pulled his hand away to look at his eye. It was tearing heavily and was mostly closed from the pain, and the pupil was pinpoint. The culprit was already on his cheek. A grass awn laid on his cheek an inch below his left eye.

“You had a grass seed in your eye,” I said as wiped the seed off his cheek. 

“It really hurts,” Derek said.

I was starting to wonder if I was going have to pack him out of here. That would be no easy task. There was a steep hill up to the road. 

“I have a first aid kit in the truck, and it has some eye ointment and an eye patch in it,” I said. “Do you want me to go get it, or do you want to try to walk out of here?”

Derek was quiet for a moment. “I think I can walk out of here with a little help,” He finally said.

I slung both rifles over my shoulder and helped Derek to his feet. 

“Keep that eye closed, and it will feel better,” I said.

We were some distance from the truck, but Derek did fine once we were moving. We got through the high grass and cut across the clear cut to the cat road that went up the hill. I had to provide some support on his arm as we climbed the hill to the truck.

I got Derek into the truck and then opened the first aid pack. I carried more of a first aid pack than what you would find on the drug store shelf. I was prepared for lacerations, fractures, and penetrating wounds. But I was a little limited on eye injuries.

I did have a small tube of eye ointment. It was a triple antibiotic ointment, but I figured it should be okay for this situation. After I squeezed it into his eye, the pain was alleviated somewhat.

It was a long drive back to town, not in miles but in time. The logging roads were not highways, and speed was not an option.

We were lucky that Saturday morning when the local Optometrist was still in his office, and he accommodated us with an emergency exam.

“There are a couple of tiny little scratches on his cornea,” the doctor said. “It should feel fine if we keep it lubricated with some ointment for a day or two.”

It was just a few days later when Mike came through the door with Bob. Bob was wagging his tail stub. He always seemed happy in the clinic. Bob was a Springer Spaniel who lived for the fall bird hunting.

“Good morning, Doc,” Mike said. “Bob has a sore eye. I would like you to look at this morning if you have time.”

I glanced at Bob, and his right eye was half-closed, and the side of his face was wet with tears. Other than the eye, he looked like nothing was wrong.

“This eye started bothering him a few days ago,” Mike said. “We hunted on Saturday, and everything seemed fine. On Sunday morning, I noticed he was squinting his eye a little.”

“Let’s get him up on the exam table where I can get a look at it,” I said.

Mike was a big, muscular young guy who cut trees for a living and spent most of his spare time hunting or fishing. Bob was his constant companion when he was hunting or fishing.

Mike lifted Bob onto the table for me, and I placed a couple of drops of topical anesthetic into his right eye. I thought that maybe I should put some of this in the first aid kit after Derek’s near incapacitation.

“We will give that a couple of minutes to soak in, and then I will be able to look at this eye a little better,” I said. “Where were you guys hunting?”

“We were up Canyon Creek,” Mike said. “There is a lot of quail up there. I miss a lot them, but Bob has a grand time. He is not much of a pointer, but he flushes the hell of them. Keeps me in shape just trying to keep up with him.”

I spread the eyelids wide on Bob’s eye. I could see there was an extensive ulcer on the surface of the cornea. I ran a blunt forceps under the upper and lower eyelids to make sure there was no foreign body. Then I grasped the third eyelid with the forceps and lifted it away from the corner of Bob’s eye. There it was, a large grass seed awn stuck under the third eyelid. I grabbed it with the forceps and pulled it out. 

“This is the problem,” I said as I held the seed up to show Mike. “Now, I need to put a little dye into this eye so we can see how much of the cornea is damaged.”

A drop of dye and a blue light from the ophthalmoscope and over half of the cornea’s surface glowed green.

“Look at how much the cornea is ulcerated,” I said.

“What do we need to do now?” Mike asked.

“I need to hang onto Bob for a couple of hours,” I said. “We need to suture his third eyelid up over his eye to serve as a patch. We will send him home on some medication, and things should heal just fine. We will take the sutures out in a week and expect the eye to be healed.”

Suturing the third eyelid was an easy procedure. With Bob under brief anesthesia, I placed a couple of mattress sutures through the upper eyelid. I used a small piece of rubber-band to serve as a stint so the sutures would not cut into the eyelid.

When Mike came to pick him up, Bob bounced out of the kennel like a new dog.

“He looks like he is feeling a little better,” Mike said.

“I will tell you a little story,” I said. “Last Saturday, I was hunting with my son up on Buck Mountain. My son got a grass seed in his eye. By the time a got over to him, the seed was already on his cheek. Now I’m telling you, he was so painful, I thought I would have to carry him out. When we got to the doctor, he had a couple of tiny scratches on his cornea. Bob comes in here wagging his tail, and over half of his cornea is ulcerated, and the grass seed is still there.”

“What does that say about how tough this dog is?” Mike said.

“Most dogs are pretty tough, and maybe people are just pansies,” I said. “Eye pain might be more intense in people because eyesight is more important to us. I don’t know, but there is definitely a big difference.” 


Photo by Scott Spedding from Pexels

The Camping Trip that Wasn’t

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I stood up to peddle harder as the last half mile was steeper. I wished I had one of those new bicycles with gears to shift. When the advertisement said you sell to your neighbors, they didn’t remind you that your neighbors were two miles away, uphill.

At 12 years of age, I had embarked on my first venture as a salesperson. Lured by a flashy magazine ad, I was going to sell garden seeds and earn enough to purchase a pup tent. It sounded simple, I had a few neighbors, and they all had large gardens. And I had a large family. Grandma’s can always be depended on to buy stuff.

“And who are you selling them for?” Margaret asked.

What a dumb question, I thought. You think I would ride my old bike for two miles up that hill to sell them for somebody else.

“I am selling them for myself,” I said. “I am going to get a pup tent.”

“I thought you might be selling them for the Boy Scouts or Church or something,” Margaret explained.

This is going to be more challenging than I thought. She would donate to some group, but she was hesitant to help some kid achieve his goal.

“That is why I need a pup tent,” I explained. “I have to work at home so much, I don’t have time to join the Boy Scouts. So I have to go camping by myself.”

I thought that was a good comeback. Margaret knew I worked in the barn and in the fields. But then, she also knew my parents. And they would not deprive me of joining the Boy Scouts if that was what I wanted to do.

“I will buy a couple of packs of the peas,” Margaret said. “I don’t have my seeds yet, and it is probably close to the time to be planting peas.”

I figured I would have to come up with a better storyline if I was going to sell all these seeds. And tomorrow, I was going to go the other direction. There were only a couple of small hills on the way to Broadbent.

As the spring progressed, I did manage to sell the necessary allotment of seeds. Although, I would guess my mother bought more than she planned to buy. I placed my order for the pup tent and waited anxiously for its arrival.

I tore open the box when it did arrive. The tent was much larger than I expected. And it was heavier also. Made from heavy canvas, at least it would be durable. It would be difficult for me to carry along with a pack, that was for sure.

I quickly had it set up in the back yard. There was plenty of room for two people that were my size. You couldn’t stand up in it, but that was no problem in my view.

It rained the second day after I had pitched it in the backyard. It didn’t leak one drop, but it took three days to dry out.

Summer came, I planned a camping trip to the back of our 160 acres with my friend from up the river. Dana and I could easily carry the tent, sleeping bags, and my brother’s pack with all the necessary supplies.

We were all packed up and ready to head up the hill when Dad came out to wish us well.

“We are planning to go to the movie tonight,” Dad said. “You two can stay up the hill if you like, or after you set up camp, you can come back and go to town with us. I have a good flashlight, you could go back up the hill when we get home.”

What a dilemma, a movie was hard to pass up in the mid-1950s. Movies were really our only source of outside entertainment. My Dad liked to go to the movies, and we would go a couple of times a month. I knew that Dana did not go that often.

“What do you think?” I asked Dana.

“I think it would be a good idea,” Dana said. “We could go set up camp, come back and go to the movie, and then walk back up in the dark to sleep.”

“Okay, we will go to the movie,” I said to Dad. “We probably will be back in time so we can eat dinner before going.”

With that, we were off. The trek was not long, we crossed the upper fields and crawled over the fence at the pasture’s end. Then we followed the cat road along the creek until it turned up the hill to the burn.

The burn was where they had logged the timber and burned it over to make good pasture for the cows. It was a good-sized area and open so we could watch the deer and other animals.

We picked a spot on the old landing and set up the tent. We threw everything else into the tent and headed back to the house for dinner.

“We don’t want to be late,” I said. “Dad won’t wait for us.”

We hurried along and got to the house just as mom was setting the table for dinner.

“This is a whole lot better than eating that can of pork and beans you would be heating over a fire,” Dad said. “You never know what you are missing until you don’t have it.”

My older sister pulled the car into the garage and came rushing into the house.

“I just had a cougar run across the road in front me,” She said, trying to catch her breath. “I was right down there at the end of Herman’s field.”

Dana’s eyes were large, as we turned around and tried to see if anything was in the field, some half-mile distant. There was nothing there.

“Are you sure it was a cougar?” Dad asked.

“We should call Uncle Robert,” Mom said. “He might want to get his dogs on its track tonight.”

“Yes, I am sure it was a cougar,” Linda said. “It had a long tail, and it moved like it didn’t have a care in the world. Are you boys camping up on that hill tonight?”

“We are going to the movie first,” I said. “We already set up camp. We will walk up there when we get home after the movie.”

“Well, I sure would not be walking up on that hill tonight,” Linda said. “That cougar probably is headed right up the creek.”

“They are brave boys,” Dad said. “We will find out tonight.”

When we got home from the movie, the night sky was clear, and the stars were bright. The moon was not up yet, and there were no lights around to distract from the milky way.

“So, do you boys want my big flashlight?” Dad asked with a little chuckle. “It is going to be pretty dark up along that creek. Or are you a little concerned about that cougar your sister says she saw?”

That was just a little hint that he was not sure he believed my sister. But it was still possible and something to think about.

“I guess we could probably sleep here tonight,” I said. “And then we could go up and cook breakfast at the campsite in the morning.”

“I think I would feel a lot better about things if you slept here,” Mom said. “That cat could carry you off before you even knew it was there.”

That was all we needed to hear. If Mom thought we should sleep in the house, we would sleep in the house.

We were up at the crack of dawn and headed up the hill. We were both well versed in the out of doors. We had a cooking fire going in no time, and I mixed the pancake batter.

“I am not sure those are going to look much like pancakes,” Dana said as he watched me trying to turn over the pancake in the little cook set fry pan.

By the time we sit back to eat, the pancakes were in a jumbled heap on the plates. But it was cooked, and a little syrup made it all better. We ate quietly, both of us thinking that Mom would have made a better breakfast.

After watching a few deer and the digger squirrels, we packed up the camp. Dana just folded the pup tent into a square and threw it over his back. It was all downhill to the house. We started off, chuckling about looking for cougar tracks down at the creek. That made us walk a little faster.