The Speed Limit

 D. E. Larsen, DVM

Our son was getting married in 2001. Nothing special; it was just one of those rites of passage. The unusual thing, the wedding was in Nebraska.

“This is going to work great for us,” Sandy said as she read the card she had just received. “We can go to Nebraska a week early, rent a car, and drive to Wisconsin for Ruth and Maurice’s seventieth wedding anniversary.”

“How much of a drive is it from Lincoln to Marshfield?” I asked. “Maybe we should just fly to Marshfield.”

“I would guess it is about eight hours,” Sandy said. “But you have to fly to Madison and then drive from there. By the time you spend all the time in the airports, you probably don’t save much time by flying.”

“I’m okay with it,” I said. “We can probably look around the area while we are there. You will probably get a lot of the visiting other than the anniversary.”

“I think Dick and Charlie are going,” Sandy said. “I guess I better get on the phone and see about reservations.”

“Maybe you should check with one of the Behrens before you make reservations,” I said. “They maybe have a block of rooms reserved.”

And so Sandy made plans. We would get a round-trip ticket to Lincoln, Nebraska. Once there, we would rent a car and drive to Marshfield. We booked an early morning flight out of Portland and had a plane change in Denver. We were lucky that there was no layover in Denver, and we would be in Lincoln before noon local time.

Danny Behrens had reserved a block of rooms at a large motel. The motel would provide the family a hospitality room so everyone could relax and visit.

“This looks like a doable trip,” I said. “The only thing that worries me is getting off the plane and then driving eight hours.”

“We have made long trips,” Sandy said. “And we will be able to rest up after the drive. We will have a full week before we have to get back to the wedding. And Ruth and John are the only of Dad’s siblings still around, and they are old enough, and this will be my last chance to see them.”

“The drive shouldn’t be bad,” I said. “It looks like we will be a freeway all the way except the last few miles.”

“And in early September, we should have good weather,” Sandy said.

“I hate to bring that up, but I guess you remember the snowstorm we had in September when we moved to Colorado,” I said.

“We won’t talk about that, and I need to go shopping,” Sandy said. “I need a new dress for the wedding and a few things for Wisconsin.”

***

The airport Ramada Inn made us a deal we couldn’t refuse. We stayed overnight, and they parked our car for the long week we were gone. Since our flight was so early, they had breakfast in a sack for us to eat on the shuttle bus to the airport.

Checking our bags and checking in for the flight was no problem. We were seated on the plane and heading down the runway in no time. When I flew in the Army, I usually had a drink or two to relax for the takeoff. I hated the takeoffs and landings. The only thing that had changed from those years, there were no drinks now.

I could nap a bit on the flight, and the plane change in Denver was simple. Before we knew it, we got off the plane in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Lincoln’s airport was small. We stopped for a quick lunch, a hamburger, and fries. Then finding the rental cars was no problem. We had reserved a midsized car.

“I can upgrade your car to a full-sized sedan if you would like,” the gal at the desk said. “If you are driving to Wisconsin, it might be a little more comfortable for you.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” I said.

We threw our bags into the large trunk and started down the road. It was just after noon.

“We should have daylight all the way,” I said. “That will be a good thing. I hate trying to find my way around a new city in the dark.”

We took I-70 toward Des Moines, Iowa, then turned north on I-35. There was not a lot of scenery to look at, but I was not prepared for the corn. 

There was corn for as far as one could see in every direction, and this went on for miles and miles. During the entire trip through Iowa, we drove through massive cornfields.

“If they harvest this corn for grain, what do they do with all the stalks?” I asked, more to myself than to Sandy.

“I have no idea,” Sandy said.

“I mean, at home, we would fill a silo with ten acres of corn,” I said. “Here they whole sections of corn, one section after another. That is a tremendous amount of plant material to dispose of. How do they do that?”

The speed limit on the freeway was sixty-five miles per hour. Since I was driving a rented car, I drove the speed limit.

All the way through Iowa, I was the slowest car on the road. Cars and trucks zoomed past me like I was standing still.

We were close to the Minnesota state line when we stopped for a bite to eat at a small community. I don’t remember the name, but tractors parked in front of the little restaurant we chose.

When the waitress brought our food, I figured she would know what they did with all the corn stalks.

“Can you tell me what happens to all the corn stalks when they harvest the corn?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” the gal answered. “I’m not a farm girl, and I have only been here for a few months.”

She probably figured it was a dumb question.

When we crossed into Minnesota, not much changed. The highway surface was not well maintained on the interstate, but the traffic did not slow because of it. I continued to be the slowest car on the road.

We were on I-90, and when we crossed the Mississippi River into Wisconsin, some traffic left the freeway, and some entered, but the main flow of traffic was unchanged.

I did not change my speed. I still drove sixty-five to sixty-seven miles per hour. The thing that did change was now, in Wisconsin, I was passing everyone. The entire line of cars was in the right-hand lane, and I was slowly passing them.

“Maybe they know something I don’t,” I said to Sandy.

“I think you should pull into the right lane and go with the traffic flow,” Sandy said.

That is what I did. I pulled into the line of cars in the right lane, and the traffic was going sixty-four to sixty-five miles per hour.

Not long later, a young man in a car came by in the left lane. He was not going much faster than I had been driving, but he slowly passed the string of cars.

It was about ten minutes later when we passed the young man. He was pulled over by a state trooper and got a ticket and a lecture.

“I think they are serious about the speed limit in this state,” I said.

We arrived in Marshfield in the evening and found the motel with no problem. The bed felt good, and we slept until almost nine.

We had a good visit in Marshfield. We visited with Ruth and Maurice in their assisted living apartment. Sandy and her brothers could see the farm they had lived at in their early years. Sandy was five when they moved to Oregon.

Sandy’s Uncle John took the group to dinner at a nearby lake. During the evening, John and his son, Mark, were discussing some guy in the neighborhood. 

“He isn’t a man you can trust,” John said to Mark. “He doesn’t even drive the speed limit.”

I don’t think I had ever heard that about any person before.

The anniversary reception was excellent, and everyone was happy we had come. I was definitely the outsider, trying to learn everyone’s name and where they fit in the family, but I had a good time. 

Ruth lived another dozen years following the anniversary, making it to the age of one hundred. Maurice passed away a few years following the anniversary.

Maurice came over to me in the middle of the celebration. He sat down beside me.

“I think they just plow those stalks back into the ground,” he said. 

I don’t know if Sandy had told him I was curious or if he had overheard me talking about it to someone else.

Our drive back to Lincoln was leisurely, and our time there was enjoyable. All the kids arrived, along with my brother, Gary, and his wife, Kathy.

The wedding was held at Boss Hog’s place of The Dukes of Hazzard fame.

Going home, we all were on the same plane from Lincoln to Denver. The plane was overbooked, and Gary and Kathy took a bump. Our daughter, Dee, and her husband parted ways with us in Denver. 

We arrived in Portland and retrieved our car. The date was September ninth, 2001. My brother and his wife thought about taking another bump on the tenth but went ahead and came home.

And then 9/11 happened.

Photo by Dave Larsen.

Meat is Life, From the Archives

D.E. Larsen, DVM

“What would you say if I told you I thought you ate too much red meat,” Dr. Goddard asked?

This was my first appointment with Dr. Goddard. He was trying to get a new style of practice off the ground, and I needed a new primary care doctor.

“I don’t think your profession knows squat about nutrition.” 

“That is sort of blunt,” Dr. Goddard says with a surprised look on his face.

“First eggs are bad. My mother-in-law lived for her eggs in the morning. Her doctors put her through hell for the last few years of her life. Now eggs are fine.”

“Okay, I will give you that one,” Dr. Goddard said. “But let’s get back to the red meat.”

“I am not sure you have looked at my file. I am a veterinarian. At heart, I am a cow doctor. Except for my 4 years in the army, my entire life has been involved with cows. I eat red meat, and that is not a discussion topic for this visit.”

“I don’t understand how you guys can feel good about caring for animals and then sending them to slaughter,” Dr. Goddard said. “The saying, meat is murder, comes to mind.”

“I think you are trying to bring this appointment to a close,” I said.

“No, I am sorry, I just don’t understand,” Dr. Goddard said with an apologetic tone.

“Do you want the long story or the short story?”

“I guess I better hear the long story,” Dr. Goddard said.

“How far are you removed from the farm? I mean, did your grandfather live on a farm?”

“No, my roots are in the city for a whole lot of generations,” Dr. Goddard said.

“So when you drive down the freeway and see hundreds of sheep grazing on the grass seed fields, how many of those sheep to you suppose would be there if they didn’t sell lamb chops in the store?”

“I hadn’t given it any thought,” Dr. Goddard said.

“Not even considering the expense of maintaining a flock of sheep for a year, the labor is considerable. People wouldn’t do it for fun.”

“I see your point,” Dr. Goddard said.

“But you wanted the long story. Those lambs that go to market probably live less than a year. But my profession ensures that their year on earth is good. And we ensure that the meat that reaches the market is the best available in the world,” I said.

“A short life is far better than no life. And the market lambs sacrifice themselves to give their mothers and some of their sisters a long life. So I would change your little quip to be more like meat is life,” I said.

“And the story goes on. I place at least some of the blame on your profession for the family farm’s demise in this country. You guys have been in cahoots with the food industry in your drive to reduce consumption of meat and dairy. Not only the egg issue, but butter is another one. You pushed margarine to replace butter. So you had your patients consuming trans fat instead of butter. Your understanding of Cholesterol metabolism at the general practitioner level was way under my training.”

“I am not sure I will take the blame for the demise of the family farm,” Dr. Goddard said.

“It was a complex issue, but you guys were cheering from the sidelines, at least. And what was the result of that loss? You guys make your recommendations and do your heart surgeries and your drugs, adding a few years onto the life of an old man. With the loss of the family farm, you also lost a whole cluster of farm kids. Farm kids served as stabilizing influencers to their peer groups. Without the farm kids, we have seen drug use spiral out of sight. We lose far more years of life to overdosing than you save in the old men. We lose probably more years yet to the pits of addiction. That all happened at the same time, I don’t think you can convince me there is not a correlation.”

“You give me something to think about,” Dr. Goddard said. “And I guess you are not much interested in my spiel on red meat.”

“No, but I want you to know, every time I throw a steak on the grill, I give silent thanks to the animal who provided it. And in a couple of seconds, many animals flash through my mind. The cows I pulled from a creek or saved from death, the calves who I worked so they could be conceived, the steers in the feedlots, and the ones going through the slaughter process.”

“So, after all of that, do you still what me as your doctor,” Dr. Goddard asked?

“When I was playing ball in high school, I was told that it was a good thing when a coach chewed you out. If he didn’t think you were worth his time, he would say anything. You just need to mark that file to not discuss red meat.”

Photo by Julia Volk from Pexels

The Spica Splint 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

We stopped at the clinic to check on a cat that didn’t get picked up on Friday. Sandy and I had taken the kids to a matinee in Albany, and everyone was anxious to get home.

Brenda came back to the kennel room with a bit of a frown on her face.

“Dad, there is someone at the door,” Brenda said. “And he has a big truck in the parking lot.”

Getting caught at the clinic for some minor issue was always the danger of stopping on the weekend. At least we were on our way home this time. I unlocked the door.

“Good afternoon. I’m Doctor Larsen,” I said, extending my hand. “Can I help you with something?”

“Hi, Doc, I’m Bob Wilson,” Bob said as he shook my hand. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we have a little dog that hurt his leg a few minutes ago. Some folks over at Safeway said we might check to see if you were open. It looks like we caught you during some off hours.” 

“Yes, we just stopped by to check on a cat that got left for the weekend,” I said. “What happened to your little dog?”

“I drive a big rig,” Bob said, pointing to his truck in the parking lot. “I just made a delivery over at Safeway, and the wife wanted to pick up a few things for our trip home. When she got out of the truck, old Jimbo jumped out after her. It’s a long way to the ground from the seat in the truck, and he sort of landed hard. I think he broke a leg.”

“Bring him in, and I will get a look at him,” I said. “But, if this is a broken leg, I won’t be able to do any surgery until the first of the week.”

Bob ran back to his truck and helped his wife and Jimbo out. When they came through the door, his wife, Martha, clutched Jimbo to her chest.

Martha carefully placed Jimbo on the exam table. Jimbo looked at me and snarled. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant exam.

“This is our situation, Doc,” Bob said. “We don’t have a lot of time here. I have to be home to pick up a load Tuesday afternoon. That means we need to be on the road as soon as possible. We were hoping that you could do something to get Jimbo home. We live in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Jimbo usually goes to the vet school there at Oklahoma State University.”

“I know a professor there,” I said. “Doctor Hopkins, he was a resident at Colorado State when I was in school. He’s a cow doctor, though. He probably won’t be looking at Jimbo.”

“What do you think?” Bob asked. “Can you help us out?”

“I am thinking that I need to put a little muzzle on Jimbo before I’m going to be able to look at him much,” I said.

“You’re probably right there,” Martha said. “He isn’t very friendly in the best of times. With this leg, I doubt you will be able to get much of a look at him without a muzzle.”

Without Joleen around, getting a muzzle on Jimbo proved challenging. Joleen would just grab these little guys around the neck and hold them so they could be disarmed. Bob finally stepped up and got Jimbo under control enough so I could apply a muzzle.

As I started doing an exam, ignoring his fracture for the moment, Jimbo had his nose bounce off my hands just so I knew that he would be chewing me to pieces if he didn’t have that muzzle in place.

When I came to his left front leg, he quieted as I lifted the leg at the elbow. I could feel the bones grind on themselves in the elbow. I lowered the leg and patted Jimbo on the head. He made one more swipe at my hand with his muzzled mouth.

“It feels like his elbow is broken up pretty bad,” I said. “That is a common injury from a jump like that. I should sedate Jimbo and get a good set of x-rays, and I can probably get this leg immobilized in a spica splint for your trip home. But you want to get him looked at right away when you get home. I am certain this fracture involves the joint surfaces, and a timely repair is important.”

“How long is this going to take, Doc?” Bob asked.

“If you guys walk over to Mollie’s and have a bite to eat, maybe drink an extra cup of coffee, I should be able to have Jimbo awake enough to be good to go. If you could just give me a hand and hold this little paranoia while I get an injection into him.”

Bob held onto Jimbo while I gave him an injection of pentathol. Just enough for me to get him on a mask for some gas anesthesia. That way, he would be under my control, and I could wake him up quickly.  

I put two films in each x-ray cassette so I could send a set of films with Bob and Martha. I snapped the pictures and started on the splint while they were developing.

Sure enough, the x-rays should the end of the humerus was broken into three pieces at the end of the bone at the elbow. This would be a repair that would require a screw and a couple of pins, or sometimes on a dog this size, I could get a good repair with three pins. But that would have to wait until they were home.

I put a soft wrap on the leg and secured the wrap by encircling the chest with the wrap also. On the outside, I laid a length of fiberglass cast material along the leg and extended it up over the back. Once this with included in the wrap, the elbow was immobilized, and it would hold them until they got home, at least.

When Bob and Martha returned, I handed them copies of the x-rays and the paperwork for the vet school.

“Have them call me if they have questions,” I said as Martha handed Sandy a credit card.

“Yes, I will make sure we let you know how things go,” Martha said. “We want to thank you guys again for taking care of our little guy. I know we sort of caught you here.”

We walked back to Jimbo’s kennel, and he was up and almost bouncing.

“I will let you pick him up out of the kennel,” I said. “I am sure he would love to get me a parting bite.”

“He looks like he feels better with that splint,” Bob said as Jimbo almost jumped into his arms.

“That leg was pretty broken up,” I said. “Having it immobilized is bound to make it feel better.”

We all went out the door together, and the kids were in the car before I locked the front door. 

“I want to thank you, kids, for being so patient,” Sandy said. 

“How far is it to Oklahoma?” Amy asked.

“It’s a long way, about as far as it was to Colorado,” Sandy said. “If you can remember that trip.”

“I can remember that trip,” Brenda said. “It was a long way.”

***

Martha called the following Friday to say that the vet school decided that the splint was doing well. They would just let Jimbo heal in it.

“Does that sound right?” Sandy asked.

“It’s hard to say who made that decision,” I said. “Jimbo is not a spring chicken, and when Bob heard the repair cost, he could have influenced that decision a bit.”

Photo by Boys in Bristol on Pexels.