The Lost Ball, from the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

“I don’t know what is wrong with old Ben, Doc,” Gavin said as he picked his dog up and settled him on the exam table. “He started vomiting once in a while several weeks ago. I just didn’t think much about it. But now, he vomits everything he puts in his mouth. He takes a drink and turns around pukes it up.”

“Let’s give him a good once over, and then we will talk about what diagnostics we need to do,” I said.

Ben had obviously lost a lot of weight since I had looked at him, but everything else was pretty unremarkable.

“How long has he been vomiting, Gavin,” I asked?

“I said several weeks, Doc. But you know how time slips away. It could have been longer. I never noticed how thin he was until just now.”

I stood him up, but Ben was a little reluctant to remain standing. Finally, with Gavin holding him under his chest, I started carefully palpating his abdomen. He was thin enough, I could just about define every structure in his belly. 

The mass just sort of jumped into my hand as I palpated his mid-abdomen. Small, round, and solid, it was the perfect size to obstruct the small intestines. 

“Does he chew on rocks or anything like that,” I asked?

“No, he doesn’t do much of anything anymore. He is getting pretty stove up. He does retrieve my golf balls when I am chipping in the back yard.”

“Golf balls,” I said as I felt the mass again. “Have you lost any of those balls?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Doc. I really don’t keep track of them. Do you think that is his problem?”

“I can feel a solid round mass in the middle of his small intestines,” I said. “It is of the size that it could be a golf ball. It could be a tumor or something else.”

“What do you think we should do,” Gavin asked?

“We could send in some blood and get some x-rays to try to define the object. Or we could just do exploratory surgery. We can fix it, or it may be something that we can’t do anything about. Really, the only way to know is to go in and look.”

“Are you saying it could be cancer?”

“Could be, but I would bet on the golf ball. It was probably rolling around his stomach for a few weeks causing him to vomit. Then in the last day or two, it started down the small intestine. That is when the vomiting really got going. If it is the ball, it is a simple fix. If it is a tumor, we can probably take it out, and then it just depends on what type of tumor it is.”

“Let’s just do the surgery,” Gavin said. “When can you do it?”

“I think we can do it the first thing in the morning. We will give him some fluids overnight and get him started on some antibiotics. If everything goes well, he should be able to go home the following day.”

“Do we have any special care,” Gavin asked?

“Not much. We will keep him on fluids and nothing by mouth for 24 hours. Then he will be on a soft slurry of a diet for a week.”

The surgery went well. Finding the foreign body was not an issue. There was virtually no fat in the omentum or anywhere else in the abdomen, for that matter. Ben has had this problem for a lot longer than Gavin had recognized. I explored the intestine’s entire length and palpated the stomach for any trace of another foreign body. None was found.

When I opened the intestine and squeezed a well-worn golf ball from its lumen, it was apparent that it had been in the stomach for some time. The cover of the golf ball had lost most of its dimples.

I closed the intestinal incision, rinsed the area well, and replaced everything into the abdomen. I closed the abdominal incisions, and we recovered Ben.

Ben felt immediately better on recovered. I think he was looking for a steak dinner. “That’s okay, Ben,” I said. “We will give you some liquid steak tomorrow morning.”

When we placed a small bowl of water in Ben’s kennel in the morning, you would have thought that he had been in the desert for a week. It just disappeared. Then we followed with a small bit of dog food mixed to a slurry. Ben lapped that down and was wagging his tail for more.

Ben was bouncing around when Gavin came to pick him up. He was ready to go after having several small meals of slurry.

“He is doing well,” I said. “He is acting like he hasn’t eaten in a month. And that may have been close to the case.”

“He sure looks better. Thanks, Doc,” Gavin said.

I tossed Gavin the golf ball in a small plastic bag.

“It looks like it has been in his stomach for some time,” I said. “You want to keep it in that bag or air it out outside. It smells pretty bad. And you know the rules. It is a stroke and distance for a lost ball.”

“I think that Ben’s golf ball retrieving is over,” Gavin said as they headed out the door.

It was a couple of weeks later when Gavin brought Ben in for suture removal. Ben was a completely different dog. He had gained at least 10 pounds. You could still feel his ribs, but they were not visible, just looking for him.

“He is back better than he has been for a long time,” Gavin said. “That golf ball must have been in there for months.”

“Yes, as long as it was just bouncing around in his stomach, it was only causing him some vomiting. When it entered his intestines is when it caused him some major problems.”

We removed the sutures and patted Ben on the head as I sat him on the floor. He was straining at the leash to get out the door. 

“They never give me any credit,” I said as Gavin was being pulled along toward the door. “They just know this is not a pleasant place to be for any amount of time.”

Photo by Siddharth Narasimhan on Unsplash

First Sergeant Scagliotti

D. E. Larsen, DVM

After getting settled into our squad room, Bill Drake and I started preparing for our first twenty-four-hour shift as CQ. Sergeant Scagliotti had wanted our fatigues to be sharp with extra starch. Mine had been buried in my duffle bag since basic training. I dug them out and hung them in my locker for the night. Then I polished my combat boots before crawling into the bunk.

We were up and ate an early breakfast at Con-4, the battalion mess hall. It was a little before eight when we entered the orderly room. Sergeant Scagliotti was waiting for us.

“I like to see guys that show up early and are ready to go to work,” Sarge said.

“I didn’t expect to see you here on Saturday,” I said. 

“You won’t find too many people in this man’s Army who will outwork me,” Sarge said. “I just wanted to make sure you guys were lined out with your responsibilities. When you’re behind this counter, you represent me. I want to make sure you understand that part of your job.”

“My fatigues have been in my duffle bag since basic, but I did polish my boots,” I said. “I should have a couple of sets of fatigues from the laundry by our next shift.”

“That’s okay, Larsen,” Sarge said. “It will take a little time for everyone to get settled. Doug, here is my outgoing clerk. He is going to get you guys straight on all the paperwork. The one thing I want to emphasize today is the job of this orderly room. This is a duty company, and these guys are going to be pulling KP on a daily basis for months. And there will be other details they will get to help with around the battalion. We will have a morale problem if we don’t protect our troops. My main job, and your job, is to make life as easy as possible for these troops. I don’t want to hear of any officer who gives anybody in my company any grief. There will be no inspections, no walk-throughs, and no harassment. Those instructions come straight from Col. Mallet. He plans to be here most Sunday afternoons to cheer up these troops. Do you understand?”

And so it began. Bill Drake and I shared a squad room in a barracks. We pulled CQ detail for Sergeant Scagliotti on a twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off schedule for the next four or five months. It took some adjusting to the twenty-four-hour shift, especially around three or four in the morning, but we made it.

The orderly room was full of troops the first Sunday that we worked. Many of the guys were still adjusting to the activities of the base. With the company day room upstairs, the orderly room turned into a gathering place.

Suddenly, Col. Mallet stepped through the door. I snapped to attention, and before I could call the group to attention, Col. Mallet said in a loud voice, “As you were.”

Col. Mallet was an impressive figure of a man. He was large and well-muscled with a blond handlebar mustache. He was a Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War, leading the last bayonet charge in the Army.

He immediately mingled with the troops and discussed how things were going for everyone. He was concerned that we might need some organized physical training to keep everyone in shape while waiting for school.

Jason was quick to respond, “We are all in pretty good shape, Sir.”

“How many one-arm pushups can you do?” Col. Mallet asked.

“I can usually do three or four, Sir,” Jason said.

“I’ll match you,” Col. Mallet said as he dropped to the floor.

They knocked out five pushups before Jason gave out.

Col. Mallet stood up and said, “Anyone else wants to try me?”

The Col. had five other guys lined up, and he matched every one of them. Most of the guys had to struggle to reach Jason’s five. Col. Mallet was still smiling after doing nearly thirty.

“Larsen, you tell Scag that I was here,” Col. Mallet said. “I have to stop over to the Honor Guard Barracks now. I will be back next week, and I expect you guys to do more than five one-armed pushups.”

Sergeant Scagliotti almost giggled when I told him of the pushup contests.

“You guys need to call me Scag in this office,” Sergeant Scagliotti said. “The only exception is when there is a senior officer present. And I have decided that we need a dog. The lieutenant is going to pick him up this morning. He is a ten-week-old Saint Bernard pup. His name is Danny, and I am going to enlist him in the Army.”

As the weeks passed, Scag became more and more talkative, and Danny grew from a ball of fuzz to near adult size. 

One afternoon when a large group had gathered in the orderly room, Scag started telling war stories. The stories went on most of the night.

“I joined the Army in 1943,” Scag said. “I was eighteen and a kid who hadn’t been out of Brooklyn. The Army showed me Europe. I missed D-Day but was on the front lines as we pushed toward Germany. One night we were getting a shelling from German artillery. I was in a foxhole with my squad leader, an older guy. We were in that hole for a long time with shells landing all around us.”

Scag continued, “I said we have been here too long. I’m going to find another hole.”

“This is the safest place to be, Kid,” the squad leader said. “Just be patient, and it will be over pretty soon.”

“I’m going over to Charlie’s hole,” Scag said as he jumped out of the foxhole and ran twenty yards to a foxhole with Charlie in it. “I dove into Charlie’s foxhole head first. Less than a minute later, a shell landed square in the foxhole with the squad leader. I have never questioned my instinct since.”

And then there were stories from Korea.

“We had a compound on one hill, and the Turks had a compound on the hill next to us,” Scag said. “We had our compound lit up all night long, and guards posted all around. The Korean slicky-boys would still steal us blind. The Turks turned off their lights and went to bed, and they would never have anything stolen.”

“Why was that?” Bill asked.

“Early on, they caught and killed one of those slicky-boys,” Scag said. “They ran a rifle rod through his ears and hung him up over their main gate. Finally, a UN commander came by and talked with the Turkish commander. He told him he had to cut the guy down. So the Turks went out there and cut the body down, leaving the head hanging from the rifle rod. The head was there until the next visit from the UN commander. Those slicky-boys never bothered them.”

The next morning, Scag looked pretty rough. He had gotten a couple hours of sleep in his chair. He came out into the orderly room with his boots untied and his pants unbloused.

“Larsen, one thing I wanted to tell everybody last night that I didn’t get to,” Scag said. “The thing you need to learn about this man’s Army is that the people who run this Army are that Spec Four down at the personnel office. The generals think they have control, but those Spec Fours are the ones that run the Army. You get that figured out, and you can go far.”

One afternoon Scag was still at the office, well after his usual go-home time. He started pacing the hallway as the clock approached six.

“What up, Scag?” I asked.

“That damn little butter bar took a truckload of our guys out to Col. Mallet’s Vietnam Village on a work detail,” Scag said. “The mess hall closes soon, and he isn’t back. I am going have his ass.”

A short time later, the lieutenant pulled into the Company compound and offloaded the detail of the guys.

“Larsen, you follow me,” Scag said. “I might need a witness.”

Out the back door, we went. The lieutenant had the guys in formation and was getting ready to release them when Scag got right in his face. Scag’s belly prevented them from touching noses, but he was literally in his face.

I am standing to the side. The contrast between my starched fatigues and the dirty fatigues of the guys in detail was striking.

“How dare you take my men on a work detail and fail to get them back for chow,” Scag said. “You had better never plan to ask me for men again. And now, you load these guys up, take them over, and make sure the mess hall will feed them dinner. And if the mess hall won’t, you take them to the PX and buy them pizza, beer, or anything else they want.”

The lieutenant swallowed noticeably. “I’m sorry, Sarge,” the lieutenant said. “Time just got away from me.”

“Sorry doesn’t fill a belly,” Scag said. “You get these guys fed, or I will have your ass. And if you don’t like it, I will meet you at battalion first in the morning. Now you get your ass in gear and get these guys fed.”

Scag retreated to stand beside me, and we watched as the lieutenant loaded the guys back in the truck and headed toward Con 4. 

“When you have responsibility for men, Larsen, you stand up for those men against any man, regardless of rank,” Scag said. “This lieutenant will learn from this experience and have a little more respect for the men under him.”

It was the middle of April when I got a class assignment and transferred to Company G for night school. It was nice to be back to a daily schedule, but Sergeant Scagliotti had taught me well in those few short months I served as his CQ. 

The Battle of Ping-Li, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

It was the end of a busy afternoon when I leaned into the reception desk to check on what remained of the day.

“I’m beat, how close to being done are we?” I asked.

“You poor man,” Sandy replied. She seldom gave me any sympathy. “Your last appointment is in the exam room. It is just a nail trim on a cat, you should be able to handle it okay.”

I stepped into the exam room and met Al and Vivian. They were new clients, but I had met Al when I was on a farm call out on Upper Berlin Road some weeks before. Al was a short guy, stocky, and with white hair and mustache. Vivian was taller than Al by several inches. 

Vivian was in immediate command of the conversation, Al would add a quip every now and then. They were parents of a long time client and had just moved to the area from San Francisco. Al had retired from a machine shop some years earlier but continued with his passion as a western cartoonist and illustrator. 

“Ping-Li is in the carrier,” Vivian said. “We just need his toenails clipped. I am on this blood thinner, and he doesn’t seem to understand that I can’t be his scratching post anymore.”

“And, Doc, he doesn’t really like to have his feet messed with,” Al said. “That is why we are here. We didn’t get one nail clipped last night.”

“Well, let’s get him up on the table and see what he thinks of us,” I said as I started to pick up the rather large carrier setting on the floor. 

I was surprised at the weight of the carrier. I leaned over and looked into the carrier as I set it on the exam table. 

Ping-Li was a large cat, well over 20 pounds and not fat at all. Ping-Li made his feelings known from the start, with a loud hiss at my face.

“I am not sure he wants to be friends,” Al said as Ping-Li hissed and jumped at the cage door.

“I think we will get some reinforcements before we get him out of the kennel,” I said. “You guys might want to wait out front.”

“He is pretty much a baby at home, but it is just the two of us most of the time,” Vivian said. “If anybody comes over, he generally hides. I am hoping this won’t be too traumatic for him.”

“Once we get a hand on him, we should be able to handle him okay,” I said. “I have a couple of gals here to help who are real cat ladies.”

“I don’t think I want to have him sedated for this,” Vivian said. “If it comes to that, we will rethink things.”

“He is one of the larger cats that we deal with around here,” I said. “But I think we can get him under control without sedating him.”

With that, Marilyn, Joleen, and I closed ourselves into the exam room with Ping-Li. The first task was to get him out of the kennel. He made it very clear that nobody was going to reach in and grab him. 

We opened the kennel door, and Joleen and I tipped it up to dump him onto the exam table. Good idea, but Ping-Li had himself braced against the sides of the kennel with all four feet. We shook the kennel several times before finally getting Ping-Li onto the exam table.

I attempted some soft talk and petting to calm him down. He hissed and swatted at the air close to my chest. Joleen made a quick grab for the back of his neck, and that got him a little under control. Using the extra-large cat sack, it took all three of us to get him stuffed inside and zipped up. He was almost too large.

Once secured, I did a quick once over. Everything looked okay, every time I came close to his head, I was greeted with a hiss. Using the scale on the tabletop, Ping-Li weighed in at just under 25 pounds. I looked at a couple of cats that weighed a couple of pounds more than that, but they were very obese. There was no fat on Ping-Li.

Once we had him in the sack, clipping his nails was no problem. We would just unzip a bottom opening by each foot, fight with Ping-Li to get the foot out of the sack, clip the nails and move to the next foot. By the time we were done, the hiss had become a loud growl. I think Ping-Li was indeed mad.

Marilyn checked with Al and Vivian to make sure there was nothing else. They came back to see Ping-Li in his sack before we returned him to the kennel. Vivian wanted to pet him to calm him down a little, but her efforts were met with hisses and growls.

We pointed Ping-Li into his kennel and started unzipping the cat sack. He was squirming out of it before it was half undone. He hit the back of the kennel, turned and hissed.

“Oh, I think he is mad,” Vivian said

“It will probably be more difficult next time,” Al said. “He is a pretty smart cat, and he will remember you, Doctor.”

Ping-Li became a regular visitor to the clinic. On most of the visits, he was much more manageable than he was on this first visit. But he continued to hate having his nails clipped, and it almost always required a cat sack to get the job done. 

I liked to think most cats became our friends, or they came to tolerate our invasion of their space. Ping-Li probably came to tolerate that invasion to a degree, but he never became our friend.

Some months after that battle with Ping-Li, Al came by with the cartoon at the top of this story. It still hangs in my study.

https://www.sweethomenews.com/story/2001/03/16/news/western-artist-al-martin-napoletanohas-brought-old-west-to-life-for-60-years/1384.html

https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk01ZkATWBbb2NSQIBcqQ3Bms4Xe57g:1597031150836&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=al+martin+napoletano&client=safari&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwid_sLT3I_rAhUKHzQIHa_UCvoQsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1343&bih=854