William's Gift Read online

  When in Toronto, I had met an eccentric older man, a Romanian of reputedly noble descent, completely devoted to his forty racehorses, which ranged from babies to retirees. He was difficult to work for and had trouble keeping help. We had spoken on the phone at length that same spring regarding my leasing his stallion. He called me back. It seemed he had concocted another idea.

  “I can support your new facility, give you some cash flow,” he said. “With the cost of keeping horses here, it might be worth my while to send you six. Two would be pregnant for you to foal out, but the others could be ridden and sold down there. This might work out well for both of us,” he concluded. It was arranged for July first. This would give me time to get the right trainer and horse person to help me. And it would help pay an assistant’s salary to have several horses in for training.

  I thought I knew the right person. Elizabeth was a horsewoman I had met in Toronto who had great horse experience and medical aptitude. I knew she had been unhappy in her job. I called her.

  “Are you interested in being an equine vet technician in the Annapolis Valley?” I asked.

  She laughed at the unexpected call. “What would I be doing?”

  I told her everything that would involve her or be her responsibility, including the care and treatment of patients and some training of the horses that were coming. Basically she would run the farm while I was on the road.

  “I’ll do it,” she said, surprising both of us. “After ten years here, I’m ready for an adventure.”

  I felt relieved to have reliable help coming. The two-to-three-week wait would be worth it. The hospital might be bigger and busier than I had anticipated.

  The very next week after I opened, while waiting for my new full-time employee, I had a conversation with a regular client that unsettled me deeply.

  “Did you know there is a new horse vet setting up just a few miles from here?” Pam asked. “I’ve heard he’s quite a bit cheaper than you.”

  “No, I hadn’t heard,” I replied, willing my face not to react — not to show the sudden anxiety I felt. “There should be room for all of us,” I continued, echoing Jim’s words from so long ago. I wish I truly felt that confident. Hopefully, there would be.

  I had a new surgical team to train. Elizabeth arrived, and so did a keen high school student who amazingly volunteered to come any time I needed her and to do chores on our days off. Both of them had to learn to help me anaesthetize animals, assist at surgery, and get them back up on their feet again. We started with the most common procedures — gelding young colts and repairing umbilical hernias. After a few horses, we really were working as a team.

  We moved on to doing a few cryptorchids. These male horses have an undescended testicle, sometimes two, and surgery to locate the retained one can be tricky. We were limited by the fact we did not have inhalant anaesthetic, but had to work with the time and safety constraints of intravenous anaesthesia only. The animals were not on oxygen and could only be kept down a short while. I had a run of good luck, because I found the retained testes in the first two ponies one fellow brought me. The drop stall and work area were working well.

  We did have an unexpected problem with flies! Sandwiched between a poultry operation and a pig farm, that first summer brought us hordes of them. We almost poisoned ourselves daily with fly spray, trying to keep our treatment and surgery areas free of flies and in impeccable condition.

  Count Stano’s horses arrived on time and settled in. Things weren’t going to be easy with them. They were totally untrained, almost wild, and were going to present a big challenge. It wouldn’t be quick. The stallion was the nicest of them, but the others each had problems that would make them hard to sell, even when trained. I wondered what I had gotten into when the shipper said he had been told I was to pay for the transport.

  “Ouch, I didn’t think it was C.O.D.,” I said. Trying to call Stano to no avail, I paid the bill. What would happen when I tried to collect it, and what about the first month’s board for six horses? A voice in my head warned me that I was in a precarious situation and might be in trouble, with a new paid employee and six new mouths to feed, if he didn’t come through. I tried not to acknowledge the voice.

  Then one of the oddest and most dramatic cases I had ever seen happened right in my own barn. A boarder’s horse had arrived a few days before, and the owner commented that he hadn’t yet been vaccinated for influenza and rhinopneumonitis that spring. I wasn’t worried and assured her I would do him shortly; he looked healthy enough. Then disaster struck. As is often the case when a lot of horses are suddenly moved to a new place at one time, a respiratory infection starts to move through the animals. Rhinopneumonitis, a herpes virus, usually causes a respiratory infection like human influenza. Rarely, it causes a fatal neurological infection — encephalitis.

  Hawk had appeared wobbly when he was turned out that morning, almost as if he were intoxicated. Elizabeth paged me on one of my calls to tell me it was subtle, but real. Later that day, she paged me in real alarm.

  “You’ve got to come back right away,” she said. “Hawk is staggering in his stall and looks like he’s going to go down.”

  I raced back to the farm. I was shocked to see how he was when I got there. Hawk had crashed violently out of the stall, breaking the door, and was staggering around the yard on the end of a lunge line, sometimes falling violently. Elizabeth was barely managing to hold onto him, and I knew if he got loose he could fall into the nearby stream or get out on the road. We couldn’t get close to him. It was clearly neurological.

  In a panic, I tried to contact the owner, and luckily she was at home.

  “Hawk has to be put down right away. He may have rabies or encephalitis. He’s in extreme pain and may start to seizure at any moment!” I blurted out. There was no time to be tactful; someone could get hurt.

  “Do what you have to,” she said in a whisper. “I can’t believe this is happening …”

  Her voice trailed off, and I hung up. When I returned to the scene in the barnyard, the situation was worse. The horse was literally out of his mind, nostrils flared, veins standing up under his skin. The beautiful animal had no idea what was happening to him.

  Two strong farmers from next door had arrived to help. All four of us attempted to get the horse pinned against the big barn door and I managed with difficulty to get a sedative injection into him. The high dose of sedation did no good and we never got near him again. One of the farmers went to get his gun and, when the horse next went down, managed to shoot him and end his suffering quickly. We were all in a state of shock, covered with blood, dirt, and sweat. It had all happened so fast. They came back with their tractor to dispose of the body. We all had little to say. It was, and still is, one of the most distressing and acute things that I have seen in my life as a vet.

  Within months, it became apparent that Stano had neither the means nor the intention to pay for his horses. As his board and training bills mounted, I started phoning, or adding notes pleading with him to send something towards their keep. One horse was sick and needed medication, two others were difficult and would be slow to train and sell. One day, I got him on the phone.

  “You’ve got to send something,” I said, trying to sound firm, “or I’ll send them all home.”

  We ended up in an angry shouting match, something I seldom did, and I pounded my fist on the desk in frustration during the conversation. What had been intended to help my business and create cash flow had become a serious liability. The expense of the move and set-up of the farm, as well as the burden of Stano’s extra horses, had, combined with the loss of clients to my new and less-expensive competitor, strained me to the maximum financially.

  Paul and Suzanne were still my closest friends and confidantes. We socialized a lot, and now Elizabeth was included. Paul had noticed how much I admired and cared for her. He was the only perso
n I had confided in or with whom I had openly discussed my emotions.

  One day, unsolicited, he said “I think Elizabeth would be perfect for you.”

  “So you have noticed,” I replied. “I don’t want her to think I lured her down here with some ulterior motive.”

  “Don’t worry — it doesn’t seem that way at all. Besides, I think she feels the same way. You two are so happy when you’re together,” he said.

  Elizabeth truly was the person I had been waiting for. We worked so well together, loved the horses so much, and just had this great chemistry. Respect was just an added bonus.

  In fact, unbelievably to me, she did feel the same way and we are life partners to this day.

  Embarking on such a controversial course in the Valley, a deeply conservative area, provided an additional strain on my new business, but I didn’t care. Only then did I realize how lonely I had been for so long. I let myself experience the deep fulfillment of having found my soulmate. We would often forget that other people didn’t see us as normal as we lived our so normal, hardworking lives. It happened that Elizabeth walked right into the most financially difficult time of my life. We worked day and night to keep afloat, sure that good intentions would make it all turn out. The dream kept us going, but I knew we were in trouble by the first winter.

  FOURTEEN

  “Are you brave enough?”

  WINTERTIME CAME and the barn was still busy, but the regular calls had noticeably decreased as I went into my third year. Times were tough, there was a very real countrywide recession, and often the owners of cases I had in the hospital left without paying, and I didn’t hear from them for months. One time I was paid in hay, another time with lobster. It was appreciated, but it didn’t pay my bills. My bank manager began to notice, as my line of credit mounted. They would not lend me any more money. I was still hampered by five out of Stano’s six horses and had received only one minor payment on his account. On top of it all, I had to admit my momentum was slipping.

  Many people were trying the new vet, who was very popular. In fact, I heard the sentiment expressed that the horse people were giving him the regular work and saving me for different or difficult cases. My nemesis, the riding instructor, was not only steering everyone to my competitor but heating up her attacks on me, as if sensing I was down. And I knew I would be foolish to underestimate the effect of my personal life on it. I stood in front of the mirror and, in one of the most serious but crucial moments of my life, looked myself in the eye with only one question in mind.

  “Can you do it? Are you brave enough?” I asked. Finding Elizabeth had been an important part of finding myself. I would not cave in. I would carry on. I walked away from that moment of self-interrogation stronger, with my head up. I was determined to find a way through this. If I had called it all wrong, overestimated, or wrongly estimated, my business plans or potential, I could adjust, come up with a backup plan. I always had.

  Elizabeth went off the payroll to help out and with genuine embarrassment agreed to go apply for unemployment assistance. My mother helped with the mortgage for a couple of months. I decided to go to Halifax and do small animal work for several days each week. It was not at all fun making the long drive in winter weather, and often it was dangerous. But it was familiar and easy to do small animals, and it paid the bills. I met lots of new people, vets and technicians who knew nothing of my troubles. Spring was coming, and we would see what would happen then.

  But by April, I could see business really was down. I would have to put Plan B into action. I called Dr. Dick Kemper.

  Ironically, small animals — wonderful, reliable, non-seasonal, small-animal practice — would see me through. How thankful I was for that solid grounding in the Ottawa Valley.

  Ever since I had come to work in Nova Scotia, I had known of a small, dilapidated clinic in a town twenty minutes away. The owner had retired, but had had no luck in selling it. He had lost interest in it and only went in for a few hours a day. He was on the verge of letting the sole employee go when I phoned him.

  “I wondered if you would be interested in leasing your practice,” I asked.

  “I don’t know … I really wanted to sell it,” he replied. “Maybe we should meet and talk.”

  “Sure, let’s meet at the practice. I’d like to see it,” I said.

  We met and he showed me the building and then the appointment book. It was initially discouraging, but I could see it had some potential. How much? I didn’t want to make a wrong move. The receptionist was a lovely person, and I remember joking with her, wondering if she came with the practice. There would be a lot of elbow grease needed, everything would have to be scrubbed and painted. The hardwood floors were grey. A lot of the drugs were outdated. But we were just sneaking in before horse season began in earnest, and I believed we could do it. Could I have ever imagined last May first when I opened my horse clinic that exactly one year later I would be contemplating opening a new small-animal business?

  We settled on a two-year lease, and the rent would include the use of all the equipment in the practice. Dr. Kemper had good surgical equipment and a decent x-ray machine; the rest of what I needed could be delivered overnight. My new friends dug in for me just as my friends in Lanark had almost ten years before, and we were indeed ready on time. Now I was running two different businesses in two different places.

  It was a good move, and still very central to most of my horse clients. In fact, I was even closer to the big barns in Halifax that had, in large part, really stuck with me. We now answered all calls at the clinic, getting most of the business calls out of the house. The small-animal practice there was not totally defunct, and I knew it would be possible to breathe life into it quite easily.

  I met a few breeders and also the local representative of the S.P.C.A. Within a few weeks, we had started a spay/neuter campaign, and there were often feral or barn cats in the clinic for neutering. Some days were wild when we had several of these poor frightened cats to deal with. Cats frequently escaped through a small crack when kennel doors were opened. Most of us got bitten, scratched, urinated upon, or all three. We had a number of orthopedic surgeries to do early on, and I had a chance to tune up my skills in repairing broken bones. I was rolling now and getting back into stride as a mixed practitioner. Usually I would do small animals in the mornings and horse calls in the afternoons, ending up back at the home farm to do treatments or check mares that were in for artificial insemination. I was amazed at how things had turned out after all my efforts at equine education. One does what is needed to survive, and I was lucky to have the skills and nerve to adapt to the changes that kept confronting my fledgling practice.

  At the farm, we were expanding our capability with regards to artificial insemination. We intended to handle stallions there, and by teaching them to collect on a “phantom” or fake mare, we could then ship semen to mares at other locations. The phantom mare was a simple contraption built out of telephone poles and a mattress. It was hidden out behind the barn. We named it “Ever Ready.” With a minimum of effort and a mare in heat standing alongside, stallions could be taught to mount this dummy and breed into an artificial vagina. The A.V. was similar to a long can or tube with a rubber lining and a bottle at the end to collect the sample. Some stallions would not use it. A few would not mount the phantom, so there was always problem-solving to do. Once successful in collecting, we would do quality control studies on the samples to see if they were suitable to ship out to mare owners.

  One day, we had a magnificent Hanoverian stallion to work with. He was early on in his training for artificial breeding. He was being handled by his owner, and I held the estrus mare. We also had a neighbour who was doing carpentry and a friend visiting from Ontario who had never seen such a process. The enthusiastic stallion was strong and hard to handle and he certainly knew what was happening when he saw Ever Ready.

  The re
ader must picture a 1,500-pound chestnut stallion running out of control at a mattress. The owner, small of stature, gave up on holding him and concentrated on getting the A.V. on the erect penis. The stallion gripped and pawed at the slippery phantom and, inexperienced, simply walked off the front of her. The carpenter had stopped to gape. The stallion owner managed to keep the contraption on the thrusting stallion as he walked willy-nilly around the yard. Finally, though sheer persistence, he got a sample and passed the A.V. off to his laughing audience, including me.

  “Well, I got it, didn’t I?” he said, slightly abashed.

  “It might have been a little unconventional, but you get an A for effort!” I laughed.

  The sample was good. It would go better next time. The carpenter was last seen smoking a cigarette.

  We were still working on many interesting cases at the farm. We usually had several horses in for A.I., saving me many miles and farm visits. The owners would bring the containers of semen to me from the bus or plane when the mare was ready to breed. There were challenging cases of colic, and lacerations to repair, and in general I was happy that the clinic was serving a good purpose. We had sold most of Stano’s horses finally, just to pay his bills, so I had dug myself out of that mess with very little in the way of support or communication from him.

  We had a rare case of pyometra in a mare that summer. The twenty-year-old mare had been bred eleven months before and had approached her birth time with an appropriately large abdomen. One morning, the owner found her draining a long strand of foul, yellow discharge. There was no foal, but a uterus full of infection. We brought her to the clinic, as she would need several days of treatment. We stood the patient old Morgan mare in the stocks, inserted a plastic stomach tube into the uterus, and tied it to her tail, placing the other end in a bucket. It took all day, but we finally filled three five-gallon pails with muck. The mare had been eating and drinking and had a normal temperature. This was truly a miracle with so much infection in her. We had to flush her uterus for days with warm saline, but finally it ran clear, and she went home.