Mixed practice in the 1970s and more
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D. E. Larsen, DVM
Ed carried Cabby into the clinic, holding him like a fragile package. Cabby was a young male orange tabby cat. He was not neutered, and Ed always brought him on a small leash.
“Ed, one of these days, a dog is going to come through the door when you’re sitting there with Cabby, and Cabby is going end up sitting on top of your head,” Sandy said. “It would be safer if you brought him in a kennel, for him and for you.
“I knew you would scold me again,” Ed said. “But Cabby is pretty sore right now, and I didn’t want to try putting him in that kennel.”
“Let me get Terri, and we will get you into an exam room,” Sandy said as she headed into the back of the clinic to find Terri.
“Terri, Ed is out front with Cabby,” Sandy said. “He is holding that cat on his lap again. One of these times, we are going to have a royal mess. If you have a minute, you might move him into an exam room before we have a dog come into the waiting room.”
“That is probably the only way he will learn to put that cat in the kennel,” Terri said. “I will be right there, but Doc is tied up for a few minutes. I guess it is better that he waits in an exam room.
Terri went up front, helped Ed back to an exam room, and made Cabby comfortable on the exam table.
“What’s going on with Cabby today?” Terri asked.
“He has this wound on his side,” Ed said. “It has been there for several days, and now it has a good scab covering it, but he is pretty sore today. I just thought that I would get Doc to look him over.”
“That’s a pretty large scab,” Terri said as she took Cabby’s temperature.
“Yes, I was worried about the wound, but I feel a lot better now that it is covered with that scab,” Ed said.
“Cabby’s temperature is almost a hundred and three,” Terri said. “I want to warn you, Ed. Don’t get too attached to that scab because the first thing that Doc will do when he comes in here is pluck that scab off of Cabby. He is probably going to do that before saying a word.”
“Why do you think he would do something like that?” Ed asked.
“I have worked here for half a dozen years,” Terri said. “And I can guarantee that Doc will get rid of that scab first thing. If there is anything that he hates, it’s a scab.”
“What if I don’t want that scab gone?” Ed asked.
“Then you better leave now,” Terri said. “I am sure that Doc won’t treat Cabby with that scab there.”
I entered the exam and looked at Ed. Terri was holding Cabby on the exam table.
“How’s it going, Ed?” I asked. “And what is up with Cabby?”
I looked at the exam sheet and turned Cabby around on the exam table to get a good look at his wound.
“He has a good scab on that wound,” Ed said.
I palpated the skin around the scab. Cabby cringed somewhat from my touch, but there was no big abscess evident.
“Wrong, Ed, the word is had a good scab,” I said as I plucked the scab off the wound. A small amount of pus rolled down Cabby’s side, and I mopped it up with a couple of surgical sponges.
“You see all that pus, Ed,” I said. “That good scab was just trapping that in the wound. That is why Cabby’s temperature is up, and he is not feeling well. We will clean the wound, shave the hair away from the wound edge, and get him on some antibiotics. He will feel much better by this evening.”
“I misled you, Ed,” Terri said with a wry smile. “He did talk before he plucked the scab.
“Terri said you were going to pull that scab off,” Ed said. “I always thought a scab was a good thing.”
“I leave very few scabs in place,” I said. “All they do is hide what is going on under them. And, like in this case, they trap pus against the wound. Another couple of days, Cabby would have had a big abscess on his side.”
“I guess with some antibiotics, Cabby and I are free to go,” Ed said. “Now I just have to get past Sandy without getting chewed out again.”
“Don’t be too hard on her,” I said. “She has your best interest at heart. Have you ever noticed one of those scratching posts that cats use?”
“Yes, Cabby has one at home,” Ed said. “He shreds one of those things in no time.”
“Well, that’s what your chest and head are going to look like if a dog comes in and scares Cabby while you are holding him on your lap,” Terri said. “If you want, I can get you a box to put him in for the ride home. It might be good practice, just to see how he likes it. I think cats usually like to be in a secure place when they are traveling.”
“How much do those cost?” Ed asked.
“I’ll give you this one,” Terri said. “Of course, Doc might pad the bill a few bucks. They are not expensive.
Ed took the box, and Cabby had no problems getting in it. He stopped at the front desk and paid the bill. Sandy noticed the box.
“I see Terri gave you a box for Cabby,” Sandy said. “He will be much safer in that box, and so will you.”
As Ed picked up Cabby’s box carrier and started out the door, he met George coming in with his young German Shepherd, Rascal.
Rascal sniffed the box, and Cabby hissed loudly. Ed looked at Sandy and smiled.
“Tell Terri thank you,” Ed said as he hurried out the door.
Photo by Jb Jorge Barreto on Pexels.
D. E. Larsen, DVM
I stood in the barnyard facing a long metal barn. It is about 90 feet long, maybe 30 feet wide with 10-foot walls. The light breeze coming off the Calapoolya River stirs a little dust. Still, it feels cool in the midday heat of July in the Willamette Valley. Not a soul in sight, Ernie had called, saying he needed emergency help with a pig. There was no other explanation. I pondered my next step. The house looked empty, nobody ran to meet me. My guess is they must be in the barn.
Then a hear a very faint, “help.” Where did that come from, it was too weak for me to get a bearing. Then it happened again. “Help,” a little louder this time, or maybe I was expecting it. It came from the barn, probably the left end.
I entered the barn and started threading my way toward the far corner. Now I could see them. Ernie’s son-in-law, a stout young man with glasses and a crew cut, was laying across this 150-pound pig, holding him down. Ernie, a thin, wiry old guy, was lying behind the pig. Ernie was holding a pile of intestines protruding from the rear end of the pig. The floor was loose dirt, and every movement produced a cloud of dust the settled on the men, the pig, and the pile of intestines.
“Thank God you made it, Doc,” Ernie said. “I can’t hold this much longer.”
I walked over to them, trying to not stir up too much dust. They were castrating this pig. They had a big hernia with a pile of intestines that would fill a gallon bucket protruding from the scrotal incision. I looked close, the other testicle remained, that was a good thing. That would allow me to quickly sedate this pig and see if I could clean things up and replace all the gut.
“Hang on just a little longer, Ernie,” I said. “I have to get a few things from the truck, and then I think we have a shot at fixing this guy up.”
I slowly moved away from the group and then ran to the truck to gather things. A drop cloth to put everything on, a plastic bag to put under the guts, an emasculator, surgery pack, scalpel blade, bucket of water with Betadine scrub and solution, suture material, fly spray and antibiotics. One bucket with water, the other full of everything else. I almost forgot the Pentathol. I mixed a 5-gram bottle and drew up 3 grams into a 60 cc syringe, attaching a sixteen gauge, one and one half inch needle to the syringe.
The office was too busy for me to bring anybody to help, I could have used an extra hand right now. I knew that I would probably forget something, so I went over the list in mind one more time before heading back into the barn.
“Just another couple of minutes and I will let you relax Ernie,” I said as I started laying out the drop cloth, moving Ernie a little to the side. Then I slid the plastic under the intestines.
“Now you can let them go, Ernie, we will just let them lay here for a few minutes,” I said. Ernie let go of the guts, and he just rolled away, laying on his back in the dust with his bloody hands in the air.
I washed my hands and swabbed the scrotum over the intact testicle. This testicle was several inches in diameter and over four inches long. I popped the 16 gauge needle into the testicle up the hub. The pig was about as tired as Ernie and only slightly flinched. I injected the 3 grams of Pentathol into the testicle.
“This guy will be asleep in a minute, and you can also rest,” I said to Bill. He had been quiet throughout the whole time.
I opened the surgery pack quickly and attached the scalpel blade. The pig was pretty sleepy now. I incised the scrotum over the testicle and through the tunic. I squeezed the testicle out of the scrotum and clamped the cord with large Oschner forceps.
“You can relax now,” I said to Bill. “I have him under control. Just stay close in case I need you.”
The beauty of this anesthesia in castration is the clamp on the cord. I the pig starts to stir, I release the clamp and let a little more anesthetic into his circulation. When I get the hernia repaired, I will remove this testicle, and he will wakeup pretty quickly.
Now I turn my attention to the gut pile. Covered with dust, but there does not appear to be any tears or other injuries. They are a little purple, but the time frame is such that they should be okay if I can replace them. I rinse the dust off with a good splash of water. Then Betadine Surgical Scrub, a little more water, and a good scrub.
“If you could take this other bucket and fill it with water from the hose in the back of the truck, I would appreciate it,” I say to Bill. He jumps up and grabs the bucket. I think he wanted to have a little break.
“Doc, is he a goner?” Ernie asked as he sat up, mostly recovered from his ordeal.
“I think things look pretty good, Ernie,” I replied. “I get these guts back where they belong and close up this hernia, he should be good to go.”
“I’ll be damned If I am going to try to save a farm call again,” Ernie said. “I am done with castrating pigs.”
“It is a lot easier if you do it when they are under 10 pounds,” I said. “However, you could still have this problem even on the little ones.”
Bill got back with the water. I made a solution with the Betadine solution in the bucket. Port wine color, they always said in school. I don’t think I ever saw port wine. I flushed the guts with a large splash. Then holding the mass up level with the inguinal canal, I began to feed them back into the abdomen. When the guts were mostly back into the abdomen, I freed the tunic from the scrotal tissues. Twisting the tunic like I was closing a plastic bag, the last of the exposed intestines squirted back into the abdomen. Then I placed a clamp across the tunic to hold everything in place while I got the suture ready.
I released the clamp on the testicle for a couple of minutes and watched as the pig made a big sigh. Then, I reapplied the clamp.
I placed a transfixing suture of #2 Dexon on the tunic. Then I palpated the external inguinal ring. I could put 3 fingers into the ring. I placed one mattress suture in the posterior half of the ring and tightened it to close the ring’s size. This done, I emasculated the other testicle. Again on this side, I freed the tunic and closed it up and sutured it closed. The external ring on this side felt normal. I don’t remember ever seeing a bilateral hernia in pigs.
I squirted both incisions with Betadine solution and sprayed the whole area with fly spray. Then I gave a large dose of Amoxicillin SQ in the front quarter. The pig was starting to stir a little.
“He will be on his feet before I have everything back in the truck, “ I said as I started gathering things up.
“Boy, was ever glad to see you, Doc,” Ernie said with a still bloody hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what we would have done without you, just would have had to butcher him, I guess.”
“Just remember, Ernie, next time do it when they are little,” I replied.
“I am thankful you could come so quickly, I guess I wasn’t even thinking of how much it was going to cost. Just remember Doc, when you are filling out the bill, he is just a pig, can’t be worth much,” Ernie said.
“Well, Ernie, I’ll tell you one thing, he is worth a damn site more today than he was yesterday,” I replied.`
Photo Credit: Photo by mali maeder from Pexels
Memoirs of a Country Vet