Nope! I’m not dead! I’ve just become really good at procrastinating. But right now, there is a sink full of dishes calling my name and I REALLY don’t want to wash them. So therefore the blog it is!

So last you knew of me I was just starting to race around in my wee car. She now has a name, Merino. To most, a Merino sheep is one that makes soft and fuzzy wool great for sweaters and gloves. In real life however, dotting the paddocks of New Zealand, they are ugly, floppy skinned beasts that have no tolerance for road side tourist cameras. They run at the slightest slowing of a vehicle. To be honest, I do the same when I come across potential rent-a-cars full of people slowly wandering the country roads when I’m in route to farms. I’m usually not out for a scenic drive but late, as veterinarians are most of the time, trying to make the appointed time that was booked in the diary. ANYWAY, Merino sheep have lots of loose skin around their fronts, are usually white to grey, depending on the rain and mud forecast, and look very old and weathered standing out in the paddocks. Thus the 1988 Ford Laser got its name, being dingy white, elderly, and having a floppy registration plate on its front end.

Finding a nut and bolt to solve this was a different story. Most of the dairy sheds are built away from the main ‘tool shop’ on farm as they try to place it in the middle of the grazing blocks. So even though we go on farm everyday, there usually isn’t a tool shop full of miscellaneous bits and pieces to borrow. I could have just asked but of course, being me, I didn’t. I had to take care of it on my own. Luckily, when I rummaged through the small tool box in the clinic I found a small bolt that happened to fit Merino and alleviate the floppy plate issue.

Leaving Merino behind at Chris Mac’s for the weekend, I flew over to Australia (middle of March) for a wedding of a good friend from home. She just happened to be marrying a Kiwi, but they had been living in Queensland for awhile. Even though it had only been a few months being away from home, it was great to see some people I knew for a change and didn’t have to explain my reason for coming to the opposite side of the world.

Now having thought I mastered the whole driving on the wrong side of the road, and a stick shift, I thought what the heck, I’ll get a manual car for a rental its cheaper. I was given the next size up from a Smart Car, pea soup green, and an engine SO quite that I couldn’t HEAR the engine to shift at first. Anything would be quieter than the Laser but still. Driving at dusk in a rainstorm with rush hour traffic was a little nerve racking. I guess I had become accustomed to south island traffic, where if you see 3 other vehicles on the same road, it’s a busy day. I made it to my hostel thankfully without any serious events. Although when I stalled going uphill on the highway in front of a semi-truck I thought maybe it was the end of the pea-soup car. DOH! The hostel turned out to be literally across the dock from the tavern where the boat was taking off to take us to the wedding island, so all I had to do was walk down the stairs the next day. It was a whole new experience getting all gussed up at a hostel amongst the hippies and young club going culture. I had snears and compliments on my shoes all at the same time. Weird.

Not knowing anybody coming to the wedding besides the bride and her sister, I just joined what looked like a bunch of people that looked dressy and said, hey are you guys going to a wedding too? And struck up conversation with whoever was around to talk to. Laura and Justin’s friends were very kind and quickly adopted me for the day. We took a short cruise to South Stradbrooke Island for the ceremony under a pretty island canopy with the sea breeze coming off the water. Laura was stunningly beautiful, and Justin went properly from anxious groom to delighted happy groom as soon as the door of the dressing room opened. My favorite part is watching the change on the grooms face instead of the bride. Its priceless.

There was much mingling, some dancing, a lovely dinner, and some great conversations with my adoptees. Now, I swear to you it was not my fault, I didn’t bring it up. I’ve learned over the years that NO one, wants to hear about my profession over dinner, on holidays, and especially at fancy occasions. THEY ASKED ME!! Hey, yur a vet? How exactly is it possible that men aren’t sterile till 60 days AFTER a vasectomy? I even tried to dodge out of it, get away with non-specific terms. But there I was surrounded by 4 attached men, with their full attention wanting a specific explanation. More wine please!

The day after the wedding, I had the whole day to myself so I drove down the Gold Coast stopping at different beaches along the way just taking in the immensity of the beach land that Queensland had. The waves, though I was told they were small, were the biggest waves I had ever seen and had me sufficiently wary of the surfing I had decided to learn. There were storms on and off all weekend and though the waves weren’t huge they were irregular with lots of rip tide or something to that effect. The surfing instructor at the hostel said, “Dude, you don’t want to learn in this. Come back on a calmer weekend.” So, alas, my surfing career would have to wait. I was content to watch the kite surfers and parasailing. These guys are NUTS! But I totally wanted to give it a try! You basically have a kite attached to a handle and a surf board. You catch a wind with the kite, you aim it out to sea, then try to hop on the surf board and put your feet in the little straps and let the kite take you out to the waves, when there’s a big gust of wind, it picks you up and carries you over the waves, or if you don’t want to surf that wave you jump and let the wind carry you over the wave. Pretty dang awesome!

Back in New Zealand I faced my first weekend on call! Now due to the fact that I never practiced small animal medicine, they are not making me do the smallies on the weekend. Phew! I’m trying to learn the small animal stuff again but at this point I’d be pretty useless. I’d be trying to convince the owner that it’s economically more sound to get a new cat than try and fix this old one. But back to the weekend, I was ready and waiting for my first emergency call. I slept lightly, had my phone on its loudest setting so not to miss a call, groceries in fridge and small snacks ready in case it was a day in the truck with no breaks. I got one call. 11am on Saturday morning, one run of the mill milk fever. A couple bags of calcium in the vein, a word of encouragement that she would for sure stand in an hour, and off I went. Yes, even here in clean, green New Zealand, where everything is perceived as better than those terrible indoor housing factory farms… they still get good ol’ milk fever, and some of the farmers are still too afraid to put calcium In the vein too fast so they just call the vet.

The next few weeks were just filled with various low key activities such as swimming at the local pool for exercise, coffee and mince pies for a lunch treat, Wednesday night dinner clubs , and leaving do’s for several people I’d met. There always seems to be people coming and leaving Vetlife, but I think a lot of it is just an excuse for a barbeque behind the clinic with Speights beer and cider. Garth, the nutritionist that had been here a year left for a job on the North Island, BBQ #1, and drinks after work 1,2, and 3. Laura, one of the British locums was finishing her time here, BBQ #2, and drinks after work 4,5,and 6. Jenny N., my host when I first arrived and inventory manager, was leaving to start her own pet shop. BBQ #3. The Wednesday supper club has reduced by 2 already! Laura asked for a pumpkin pie before she left, because she had heard about this American tradition at Thanksgiving. I was delighted, until I found out that ORANGE pumpkins don’t exist here! They are grey or green, known to me as butternut squash but referred to here as pumpkin. It also doesn’t come in a pre-processed easy prep can o’ pumpkin. After I cooked down my squash I then realized I had no blender or food processor. What I did have was a side crank, 1950’s manual hand mixer. Aside from a few weird lumps of squash the ‘pumpkin pie’ came out pretty dang good.

One for the list if people come to visit, a can of pumpkin for a real pie.

It was also a few weeks of freak accidents for cows. There was a cow vs. silage wagon, which I even successfully placed drains in the wounds like a good surgeon (although in the absolute wrong way after reading in the surgery books later), but she healed up great! After she tried to run us down a few times when I had to go back and remove the drains, I dubbed her able to go back to the main herd. She had been breaking down paddock fences to get back anyway. She was so covered in purple wound spray and red spray paint to mark her as a penicillin cow that she looked quite artistic.

There was another heifer calf vs. bale spike that was a similar story. She was in a 40 acre paddock and we had to run her down with 4 people and a motor bike just to get close enough to sedate and examine the wound. After an inventive stitch-up with a scalpel blade clip job and a 16 gauge needle to thread the suture (my kit was being sterilized from the other cow), she was up and running back to her mates. Didn’t seem to phase her. Gotta love cows!

And now for the pièce de résistance, I had a call to look at a cow with a swollen eye. Turns out she had a broken jaw! Figure that one out! Well actually it was another silage wagon incident as far as we can figure. 4 weeks prior, the owner noticed her eye was weepy and opaque, treated it for pink eye and when she started losing weight called us. She had actually ruptured her globe, that was scarred down and doing fine, but looking in her mouth to rule out choke or woody tongue, we saw she had broken her jaw at the symphysis (middle of the front teeth) and there was a good 4 inch wound into the mucosa. Ok, how do you fix THAT! Well, we decided to give it a try by wiring it shut like in a dog. Using the largest orthopedic wire Susan and I could find in the clinic and 2, 18 gauge spinal needles, and a lot of Ketamine/Xyalzine we managed to get 4 pieces of wire around the teeth and mandible. We put one of the owners on picture duty and ended up with some great shots, and even some surprise video. At one point while tightening the wires, it broke, and there’s definitely a muffled s**t caught on tape. Oops. To be fair I was standing on my head trying to pass wires through spinal needles and slobber while she was fighting the drugs with every brain cell. We finished tightening the last wire with her standing even though 3 people were sitting on her a minute earlier.

More to come! There’s a few more crazy weekends to tell about!

Kat

Pictures to come soon!