5 days ago (Monday)

On Monday, I got to meet Dr. Melvin Fillerup, the veterinarian that I am doing a two week externship with in Cody, WY. From previous conversations, I had an inkling that Dr. Mel was a bit on the ornery side--and he didn't disappoint. We looked at a dog that morning and then euthanized a 16 year old cat for an elderly lady. My heart broke a little, watching her clutch the yellow cat to her chest as she tried to keep the tears at bay. She'd had Clyde since he was a 6 week old kitten. As we got ready to leave for a farm call, I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman whom everyone referred to as Uncle Val. He had worked horses all of his life and had a special interest in mustangs. He needed a health certificate for several mustangs he was taking down to Texas for a documentary on how well mustangs can turn out if people take the time to work with them. That already gave me respect for Uncle Val. Before he left, he gave everyone in the clinic a hug, including me. Dr. Mel and I then headed out to look at a pregnant ewe who wasn't doing so well. The owners were not sure when she was bred and her due date was unknown. My gut instinct when we arrived was that she had pregnancy toxemia, but she proved both Dr. Mel and me wrong. Her udder was large and swollen, nearly dragging the ground, but she had an otherwise normal physical exam. Her hind legs were beginning to break down from the weight she was carrying. We did a vaginal exam and sure enough, she was due to lamb anyday. We gave her a dose of furosemide to help decrease the swelling in her udder and then headed on to our next call. We'd only made it five minutes down the road when the owners of the ewe called us to say she'd fallen down and was convulsing. We quickly turned back around, puzzled as to the cause of her seizures. I had never heard of a reaction to furosemide and in all of his years of practice, Dr. Mel had never seen a reaction. Upon further investigation, it was noted on the label that if an animal already had low calcium that furosemide could rarely cause them to have tetany, which is repeated muscle contractions. When we returned, Dr. Mel asked me what would become one of his favorite questions "If you were the empress, what would you do?" After some discussion, the ewe received some electrolytes in a vein and we got her comfortably settled before taking off again. Our next stop was at the local dairy--one of two in the area. They had a cow die abruptly and were concerned as to the cause. We performed a necropsy in the dimming light and found ulcerations in her abomasum and presumed that she was septic. Samples were taken to send off to the lab for confirmation. As we backed the truck into the garage, the phone rang again. This time, it was a beef cow who was having problems calving. We took off and drove several miles out of town. The weather during the day had been pleasant enough, but I was shuddering at the thought of doing a c-section in the dark in the cold if that's what we had to do. We pulled in, grabbed what we needed, and then headed to the corral. A black angus cow was lying flat out on her side with one tiny hoof sticking out of her vulva. She lay quiet but as soon as Dr. Mel reached out to touch her she came to life. The rancher had one rope around her head and one around her left hind leg which were tied to opposite ends of the small pen, but the slackness in the ropes almost made them futile. She bellered and tried her best to run around the pen as Dr. Mel struggled to palpate her. He finished and then asked me the question I had been hesitantly waiting for.
"Do you want to go ahead and palpate her?" Taking a deep breath, I shed my nice, warm, oh so comfy coat, rolled up my sleeves, and splashed my arms with icy cold water before reaching into the cow and feeling two hooves, then two hocks, and then a tail. The calf was coming backwards. But as I continued to feel around, I was puzzled as to why this large cow was having problems delivering, even if the calf was backwards. Dr. Mel answered my unspoken question as he spoke to the rancher.
"Its right hind leg was caught on the pelvis. I straightened it out and we should be able to pull it without a problem. Do you have a calf jack?" They quickly attached the straps to the calf's legs and Dr. Mel asked me to bring the chain and handles. I reached into the box and momentarily froze in panic as the metal handles clung firmly to my wet hands. Instinctively, I pulled the handle off of my left hand and it fell back into the box. Wiping my fingers on my coveralls, I picked them up again, slightly reassured that they weren't going to be part of me permanently. We hooked the calf up to the calf jack and a few cranks and several minutes later a healthy bull calf was on the ground. I went to work cleaning out his nose and mouth and thumping on his chest to keep him breathing while Dr. Mel continued to take care of the mama cow. Finally satisfied that both mom and baby were ok, we headed back to the clinic. My fingers were so numb I could barely open the truck door. And so concluded day one in Cody, WY.