I Presume?  From the Archives

I Presume?

D. E. Larsen, DVM

The auditorium class quieted down as the professor took the stage. This was an entirely new experience for me. This class filled the auditorium, maybe 500 students.

The professor was a large man, and he looked like he could have been a linebacker in his college days. Not fat, just tall and well built, and very muscular.

He picked up a piece of chalk and, in a giant cursive script, he wrote ‘I presume?’ on the board. Then he returned to the podium.

“For those who don’t know me and have not figured it out yet, my name is Doctor Livingstone.”

The Fall of 1964 found me searching for some spark of inspiration to get my education back on track. I had been admitted to Colorado State University, and I was determined to pursue admission to veterinary school. 

Just how I ended up in Doctor Livingstone’s botany class was a bit of a mystery to me, even at the time. It was a science course and could have been in the pre-veterinary requirements at the time. Or possibly, an astute advisor recognized that Doctor Livingstone could be helpful for this farm boy.

Doctor Livingstone’s lectures were as intriguing as was his initial introduction. I always preferred to sit in the back of the class, and I initially picked a seat near the back and closest to the exit, and I had a full view of the auditorium. When Doctor Livingstone was speaking, he held the full attention of the entire class.

This class of hundreds was broken down into smaller groups of about thirty students for the laboratory portions of the course. Graduate students conducted the lab classes, but seeing Doctor Livingstone dropping into the lab was not unusual.

This system had pluses and minuses. For one thing, it allowed for a personal relationship with the graduate student. But with that relationship, I would learn that the lab class had an assigned row of seats to use and that attendance would be taken. That wasn’t too bad, but I lost my perch in the back of the auditorium.

In one of our Thursday afternoon lab classes, Doctor Livingstone stood behind our small group as we were discussing the microscope slide we were working on that day. As was typical for me, I stumbled over a few scientific words.

Doctor Livingstone corrected my attempts at pronunciation and helped the four of us complete the exercise. Then I noticed he went and talked with the graduate student and checked the grade book.

As the class was cleaning up and I put my books into my pack, Doctor Livingstone came over and sat beside me.

“Mr. Larsen, you’re a pretty good student, at least in this class,” Doctor Livingstone said. “Do you always have trouble with these long words?”

“I just have to hear the word a few times before I can get all the syllables to come out right,” I said.

“I will give you a couple of tips that helped me a lot when I was your age,” Doctor Livingstone said. “I had a lot of problems also. Maybe I am a bit dyslexic, I don’t know, but I just had problems with the big words. It doesn’t matter what you call it in your mind. You just need to learn to spell it correctly. And then, when you do have to pronounce it, you should do so with utter self-confidence. You will find, if you do that confidently, after a short time, everyone around you will be using your pronunciation.”

It was sometime later before I wondered what it was that prompted the doctor to spend those few minutes with me. But it was advice that I follow to this day, and there are still words that I stumble over.

My stay at Colorado State in 1964 was brief. My classroom performance was less than stellar. This was primarily due to the lack of maturity to apply myself to necessary classes that did not interest me. The fact that Colorado sold three-point-two beer to eighteen-year-olds could have had some influence on my school work.

I experienced the best in professors in Doctor Livingstone. And I watched the worst professor in my educational experience in my History of Western Civilization class, but that is a different story. Friday night dinner with my roommates was always five hamburgers, purchased for a dollar, something new to me. My PE class was swimming, and it took several weeks for me to adjust to the altitude. I spent way too much money that term, but it was fun. And then there was a brief encounter with a wild preacher’s daughter. All life lessons, some better than others.

It took me seven years before I returned to Colorado State University. I was admitted to the College of Veterinary Medicine in the Fall of 1971.

There are lessons to be learned here, and they don’t involve the preacher’s daughter. I have always been concerned about all the advanced placement available for students coming out of high school today. It is hard to argue against because of the high cost of higher education today. But suppose you are placed above some classes. In that case, you may lose the opportunity for a great professor, like Doctor Livingstone, to influence the rest of your life. And perseverance pays off. Not everyone is made to fit the mold educators plan out for kids, some of us have to find our own way.

 Tigger’s Pellet, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Ann spent most of the time at the front desk while Ruth and I did an annual exam and vaccinations on Tigger. She returned to the exam room just as we put Tigger back into his kennel.

“How do things look with Tigger?” Ann asked.

“Tigger is doing fine for a twelve-year-old neutered male,” I said. “You know, these guys seldom make to fifteen. But it is pretty hard to find anything wrong with him today. The only problem I can even mention is the pellet I can feel on his upper right thigh. But looking through his record, I have noted that every year for the last five years.”

“Yes, and you always say the same thing,” Ann said. “We can take it out with no problem, but it doesn’t seem to be causing him any issues.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” I said. “I guess there is probably some lead exposure to his system. But he is healthy as a horse. I don’t think it is causing him any issues.”

“I do worry about the lead issue,” Ann said.

“Well, this is a twenty-two caliber pellet, and they are usually made is uncoated lead,” I said. “It would be easy to remove it. Just a short anesthetic episode, and I would make an incision around the pellet and remove it in a block of tissue surrounding it. A couple of stitches is all, not anything that will bother Tigger.”

“I will think about,” Ann said. “Obviously, it’s a very elective thing. It hasn’t caused a problem for the last five years, and I sort of think it was there for some time before you noted it.”

***

It was late winter of the same year when Ann again had Tigger into the clinic.

“What’s up with Tigger today?” I asked as I entered the exam room.

“I’m not sure, Doc,” Ann said. “He has just been doing a lot of vomiting lately. Nothing major. He just vomits little puddles of liquid with a little grass, but it happens several times a day, and he has never had that kind of a problem before.”

“Am I correct in thinking that Tigger is outside and does a lot of hunting?” I asked. “If that is the case, this is most likely just a parasite issue.”

“Yes, I guess I’m just a worry wort,” Ann said. “You don’t think it could be that pellet do you?”

“You have probably heard me say before, if you’re in a barn and see hoof prints, you look for a horse, not a zebra.”

“What does that mean?” Ann asked.

“You will feel foolish if you spend all your time looking for a zebra and then suddenly stumble onto a horse,” I said. “Or in Tigger’s case, if we do all the work, and the expense, to diagnose lead poisoning and then figure out that it is just a tapeworm problem.”

“I see. You’re saying that you see more tapeworm problems in cats than you see lead poisoning,” Ann said.

“Yes, that’s the thing,” I said. “I have seen one case of lead poisoning, in a cow no less. She had been chewing on a car battery left in the pasture. That was when I was in vet school, and the diagnosis was not made until the cow reached the necropsy floor. As far as pellets under pets’ skin, you should see some of the x-rays I have of bird dogs. They are usually peppered with lead shots. And they don’t have any problems. With Tigger today, let’s make sure his kidneys are okay and worm him. If problems continue after that, we can formulate a course of action. Depending on what you want to do, just removing that pellet might be the easiest first step.”

With that discussion over, we popped a worm pill down Tigger and checked his urine, which showed no problems.

“Let me hear from you in a couple of days, Ann,” I said. “If Tigger is still vomiting, we can send some sample in for lead levels, or we can remove the pellet and see what happens.”

***

Two days later, Ann was back with Tigger.

“The vomiting is still happening,” Ann said. “I think I would like to take that pellet out and see what happens.”

“Do you want to send in some samples for lead levels?” I asked.

“He still eats. Let’s just do the pellet today,” Ann said. “That will spare the lab expense, and if nothing else, it will give me peace of mind.”

We took Tigger to surgery, and after getting him under an anesthetic, we prepped a wide area on his right thigh. I made a wide elliptical incision around the pellet and removed it in a block of tissue. The incision was closed in two layers.

When I opened the tissue block, there was a dark discoloration of the tissues in contact with the pellet. This discoloration extended several millimeters into the tissues.

Tigger went home, utterly oblivious to his surgical wound. After several days, his vomiting resolved.

***

“It looks like this incision healed with no problem,” I said as I wrestled Tigger to the tabletop to take his sutures out.

“The surgery never bothered him,” Ann said. “He seems to feel so much better than he has in a long time. I think that pellet must have been causing him some problems for a long time.”

“We didn’t do any of the diagnostics, so we will never really know,” I said. “It is challenging to accurately gauge results when we want to see favorable outcomes. That is why medical studies have to be so carefully designed or our biases sneak in and influence the findings.”

“Well, Tigger doesn’t care,” Ann said. “He just feels better.”

Tigger lived to a ripe old age of sixteen years. In those years, that was almost unheard of for a male cat. Today’s life expectancy is longer, and twenty years is an attainable goal for many cats.

Photo by Yulia Ilina from Pexels.

A Trip to Seoul, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

There was a chill in the air as Truman, and I walked over to the motor pool in the dark.

“Who’s idea was it to leave at this hour?” Truman asked.

“They changed the time for the game, and if we are going to make it for the kickoff, we have to get on the road pretty soon,” I said.

“How many times have you driven a deuce and a half, Larsen?” the motor pool sergeant asked.

“Never,” I said. “But I had a commercial driver’s license before entering the Army. I have driven trucks on the farm since about the age of ten.”

“Will, the roads in Korea are a long way from the farm,” the sergeant said. “Where are you going at such an hour?”

“The 508th ASA Group is playing in the semifinals for the football league,” I said. “One of the guys from our shop is on the team. We are going up for the game.”

“You are going to be dodging ox carts and foot traffic all the way to Seoul,” the sergeant said. “And the traffic in the middle of Seoul will be like you have never seen before. You just have to lean on your horn at every intersection. Otherwise, nobody will pay any attention to you. This truck has these yellow rebar posts welded onto the front bumper’s edge; you will find them invaluable to knowing where you are on the road. If the rebar clears the papa-san, you are fine.”

“You make it sound like we are going to be dodging people the entire way,” I said.

“Like I said, Larsen, we are a long way from the farm,” the sergeant said.

Following the basic instructions, we were good to go and pulled over in front of the mess hall to load the crew up. It was before shift change for the operations building, but we had twisted the mess hall for an early breakfast.

“Okay, guys,” I said as I picked up a couple of bananas from the fruit stand in the mess hall. “We need to load up and get on the road.”

“I’m not in the shop, but I was wondering if I could ride along,” Bob asked.

“What do you mean you’re not in the shop?” I asked. “You’re in supply. Get your butt in the truck.”

Everyone was loading into the truck in front of the mess hall. Truman was waiting to secure the tailgate.

“Lauser, why don’t you ride up front with Truman and me?” I asked. “The seats are a little softer, and there is plenty of room.”

With everyone loaded up, we drove the half mile to the main gate and turned the truck down the main street of Anjeung-ri. The street was teeming with people. There was hardly enough room for the truck in the middle of the road.

“Hit the horn, Larsen,” Truman said. “Let’s see if they jump.”

I gave a short blast on the horn, and the road cleared as if by magic. That was our first lesson in driving the roads of Korea.

“We have fifty miles of this. I hope the horn holds up,” I said as we drove into the countryside of South Korea.

The people thinned out, but the ox carts seemed to be everywhere. In early October, we were in the middle of the rice harvest. There were several times when people would seem to appear out of nowhere. One old man stepped out onto the road, and the yellow rebar on the front bumper couldn’t have missed his elbow by more than an inch.

“That was close,” Truman said. “Where the hell did he come from?”

When we got close to Seoul, the ox carts thinned, and the people increased in numbers. I laid on the horn at every intersection. People and vehicles seemed to part in front of the truck and collapse behind it. Sort of like driving through a flock of sheep on an Idaho highway.

We arrived at the football field with plenty of time before the kickoff. The game was not much to watch, but everyone enjoyed the break away from the company.

“Watching these guys, I should have tried out for the team,” I said.

“I think Mr. Neal was happy to get Ed out of the shop for a couple of months,” Lauser said. “I don’t think he would have let you go.”

It started raining before the game ended, and many of our group spent the last couple of minutes back in the truck. The 508th lost by a couple of touchdowns.

I checked with Ed after the game to make sure he wasn’t planning to return with us.

“The coach is going to take me back tomorrow in a jeep,” Ed said. “That will be more comfortable than riding in the back of a truck.”

We loaded up and headed back to Camp Humphreys. Thinking we had the system for driving in Seoul down pat, we sailed through the first few intersections with the horn blaring.

Then the horn went dead. We could hardly move and ended up stuck in the middle of a large intersection. Six streets came together in a giant maze, and people swarmed from everywhere.

“What the hell are we going to do now?” I asked.

“I’ll show you,” Truman said. “You get ready to move this thing.”

Truman rolled down his window, crawled halfway out, pounded on the truck’s hood, and shouted at the top of his lungs. The way forward cleared almost as magically as if we had a horn.

With increasing rain, Truman was getting soaked, but he didn’t complain, and before we knew it, we were back in the countryside. The traffic was heavier than our trip up to Seoul in the morning hours. There were fewer ox carts and more people, but they were confining themselves to the edge of the road better because of the traffic.

As we drove south out of Suwon, we were in a line of trucks. Most of the trucks were loaded with large sacks of rice. The rain was heavy now. The highway was elevated on a dike passing through a long stretch of rice paddies.

Suddenly, the truck in front of us started braking, and he twisted this way and that way.

“What the heck is wrong with him?” Lauser said.

About then, we could see this guy rolling down the highway ahead of the truck. He had just been struck by the truck. The truck continued to fight for control and finally headed off the road and into the rice paddies some fifteen feet below.

As the truck went over the edge of the dike, his rear wheels rose high in the air. When the wheels came down, they struck the man, stretched out on the highway, squarely in his midsection. Splat!

“Oh my God!” Truman said. “Did you see that?”

In Korea, whenever there was a traumatic event, a crowd of people would appear, seemingly from out of the mist.

A hundred people surrounded us almost instantly. We were all out of the truck but couldn’t move through the crowd. I got back in the truck to watch as things unfolded before us.

Several Koreans stopped the first truck in the northbound lane. They folded the dead guy up, picked him up, and stuck him in on the floor of the passenger side of the rice truck they had stopped. And off the truck went, heading to Suwon with his dead passenger.

The crowd dissipated as rapidly as it had formed. Everything was back to the way it had been moments before the accident as if nothing had happened.

We looked at each other and shook our heads. Truman laughed.

“Check the back, and make sure we have everybody and the tail gate is secure,” I said. “We need to get home and unwind now.”

“Yeah, tonight might be a good night to have a purple Jesus party,” Lauser said.

“I don’t know. I think I will stop by Bob’s hooch and play with his new puppy,” I said.

“What’s up that?” Truman said. “The Koreans don’t have pets. Where did he come up with a puppy like that?”

“I don’t know, but it is sort of a touch of home,” I said.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. All the guys were happy when I dropped them off at the mess hall, just in time for dinner.”

“How did the trip go?” the motor pool sergeant asked.

“It went well until the horn stopped working,” I said. “And then when the truck squished a guy on the highway, the fun was sort of over.”

“Did you hit someone?” the sergeant asked.

“No, it was a rice truck ahead of us,” I said. “We just had a front-row view of the event.”

“You had me worried for a minute,” the sergeant said. “We would be buried in paperwork if you had hit someone.”

After finishing up at the motor pool, I went to the mess hall for dinner and then changed clothes and went to the village. I stopped at Bob’s hooch and played with his puppy for a bit before going to Duffy’s Tavern to drown out the day’s events.