That morning I’d got my kit ready – the unwritten vet ‘uniform’ of chinos, flat pumps and checked shirt. Over that went the student’s purple scrub top with my name stitched onto the top left side, plus a stethoscope round my neck, thermometer, scissors, notepad and pens (lots) shoved in my pockets. And a fob watch, because as vets we had to keep our arms below the elbow bare of clothing or jewellery.
Knowing that I’d be on the front line of emergency animal care had kept me awake for a good part of the night. So far we’d had a couple of easy weeks, learning how to take diagnostic images and spending time in dermatology. But now, along with the four other trainee vets in my rotation group, I would be facing a continuous stream of animals, all needing a split-second diagnosis. Animals can’t tell you what they’re feeling, so all a vet can do is look at the presenting symptoms, the animal’s condition and its history and put everything together to try to work out what’s going on.
I looked down at Misty, trying to remember my list of vital checks and questions. A three-year-old West Highland terrier, she was clearly in distress. Her temperature was high and her heart was racing. Her face looked swollen and her breathing was becoming ever more laboured.
Her owner, Mrs Stevens, was clearly worried and distressed. I could see that Misty meant the world to her. In a shaky voice she explained that she had taken Misty to the park a few hours earlier.
‘It was such a nice day,’ she said, her voice wobbling with emotion. ‘The sun was out, so we went for a walk and stopped for a bit. I sat on a bench and Misty was chasing around in the flowerbed. Then she yelped. I think she might have been stung by a bee. But surely that wouldn’t make her so ill, would it?’
She had just given me the clue I needed. I was pretty sure it had to be anaphylactic shock – an extreme allergic reaction – and there wasn’t much time to waste. The swelling was now so intense that Misty’s tongue and gums were turning blue from lack of oxygen.
‘I think Misty may have had a bad reaction to that sting,’ I told her. ‘Sometimes it can be very extreme. I’ll need to take her through to see a senior vet. Try not to worry. You have a sit down and I’ll ask someone to bring you a cup of tea.’
‘Please do your best,’ she said, her eyes filling again. ‘I can’t lose her.’
I carried Misty through to the treatment room, where I explained to the clinician in charge what I thought was going on. He agreed, and the team swung into action to administer oxygen via a mask, IV fluids and steroids. The steroids would reduce the inflammation in her mouth and larynx so that she could breathe properly again. A nurse ran to get a fan to bring down her temperature, which was still rising. As the team rushed around Misty I checked her vital signs – heart rate, respiration rate and temperature – so that we had a base line against which we could check, to see whether she was improving or deteriorating.
‘Come on, Misty,’ I muttered, looking at her prone form. ‘Stay with us.’
After a tense hour she gradually began to perk up and I felt weak-kneed with relief. Along with a supervising vet I went back to see Mrs Stevens in the waiting room to let her know that Misty was starting to improve. We would keep an eye on her overnight and if all went well she would be on her way home the following morning.
Mrs Stevens clasped my hand, relief etched on her face. ‘Thank you, oh, thank you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’
‘We’re here to help and I’m glad we could,’ I said. ‘We’ll be checking on her right through the night, so try not to worry.’
Seeing Mrs Steven’s reaction I was reminded how much this job is about people as well as pets. Every animal belongs to someone who loves and cares for it. A dog or a cat becomes a member of the family, and sometimes they are also a treasured companion to someone living alone.
Back in the ER I took a gulp from the cup of tea I’d been handed half an hour earlier, now stone cold, and slumped into a chair. It looked as if it was going to be a long night.
As I finished my tea and stood up my best friend Lucy shot past, holding a very limp-looking poodle. ‘Nasty V and D,’ she muttered. Numerous cases of vomiting and diarrhoea appeared in the hospital, so the staff all knew it as V and D.
‘You OK?’
‘Yes, you?’
‘Fine. Catch you later.’
It was the longest conversation we’d managed all evening. Lucy was in my rotation group, so we would be doing all our core placements together. Clever, forthright and outgoing, Lucy was a fantastic friend and she was going to be a talented vet. We’d clicked from the moment we met, in the third year, and had been close friends ever since.
The phone rang and I leaped to grab it.
‘It’s reception. We’ve got a lady here with a very poorly cat.’
‘I’m on my way.’
I took a deep breath, rubbed my tired eyes, straightened my scrub top and headed down the corridor to the cat waiting area. The Queen Mother Hospital, known as the QMH, has a bank of reception desks and beyond them there are separate dog and cat waiting areas – for obvious reasons.
The QMH is situated on the campus of the Royal Veterinary College in Hertfordshire. It’s a world-class, state-of-the-art veterinary hospital with superb facilities. Twelve thousand animals go through the door each year to be treated by a team of highly experienced vets. The hospital’s daytime working hours are 7am to 7pm, but it offers a twenty-four-hour service. At night only the emergency department operates, so every animal that needs out-of-hours urgent care arrives there first, and more than any other service in the hospital it relies on students to keep it going. That meant long hours on our part; our shifts were midday to midnight, or four in the afternoon to four in the morning.
We trainee vets did the initial assessments of the endless stream of animals arriving overnight, but we then reported to a senior clinician and a couple of interns, qualified vets completing an advanced version of rotations to further their careers.
While we were the only ones on the spot, staff from other departments were always on call should they be needed, and the sight of a dishevelled surgeon, hair awry, shirt half-buttoned, hurrying through the darkened corridors towards the operating theatre to attend to an emergency was pretty common.
I already knew just how brilliant the emergency vets could be; my family’s lovely springer spaniel Tosca had undergone life-saving surgery at the QMH the previous year, after getting into a sack of dried food and gorging on a large quantity that swelled in her stomach. The first surgery at our local vet practice had gone wrong, causing her abdomen to become septic. While a very ill Tosca was rushed into theatre, a final-year vet student, who had been impressively thorough and calm, had consulted with me and my parents.
It had seemed impossible then that just a year later I would be the one doing the consultations. But here I was, doing my best to appear calm and competent. In the waiting room I looked around. ‘Pepsi?’ A friendly-looking couple and their young son leaped to their feet as I approached.
‘Pepsi isn’t well,’ said the boy, who was about ten. ‘She keeps going to sleep and she won’t eat.’
His mum joined in. ‘She’s been losing weight and now she just seems to have no energy.’
‘And she’s only eighteen months,’ finished the dad.
‘Right, well, let’s go through to the consulting room and take a look at her, shall we?’
I was already beginning to realise that with more than one owner present, all keen to tell me what was going on, I was likely to end up having to untangle the story.
Pepsi was a sorry sight. She was a pretty little tabby, and she flopped on the examining table with no interest in anything going on around her. I took a look at