Veterinarians often work nights, weekends, and holidays. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are no exception. Christmas Eve three years ago, as we were just finishing things up at the clinic and getting ready to go home early, a phone call came in. Dun, dun, dun. We were soooo close. The farmer on the other end said one of his heifers was calving, and he needed a veterinarian to come out. My technician and I threw on our insulated coveralls and stocking caps and ventured out in the blistering cold. We arrived at the farm, and the heifer was in a pen with a bull who was there to keep her company. The pen led to an alleyway, which then led to a chute. We at least had one thing going in our favor at this point. I had come to be thankful for farmers who had their animals caught and a reliable means to restrain them. We walked through the frozen lot to where the animals were kept. As I approached the cattle I realized that they were black with quite a bit of ear. Anyone who has been around cattle knows that when cattle have “extra ear,” that means they have some Brahman genetics in them. You can pretty reliably say that most cattle with Brahman lineage are going to be high spirited. These cattle in particular we would call Brangus, as they were Angus cattle with a mix of Brahman. Anyway, as we approached the pen, the farmer said, “That bull is in there just to keep her company. We’ll let him out as we put her in the chute.” The farmer positioned himself at the side gate just before the head catch. The bull started to head down the alleyway, so the farmer opened the side gate to let him out. My technician, Angela, and I were behind the cattle coaxing them forward. Suddenly, the bull backed up the alleyway and he and the heifer switched positions, with the heifer heading into the alleyway first. The farmer was unaware of this, and apparently hard of hearing. Angela and I started screaming, “It’s the heifer! It’s the heifer!!!” to no avail. The farmer didn’t hear us, left the gate open, and the heifer ran out. Unfortunately, the gate to the mud lot in front of the chute was also open. As she rounded the corner, exited the mud lot, and high tailed it back to the pasture with all of her “friends”, I muttered a few choice words to myself. I said something like, “Dadgummit! I sure wish that wouldn’t have happened!” Well, ten times worse, but that’s the PG version. The farmer was an elderly man, and I was worried that he wouldn’t be able to outrun an angry heifer on ice, so Angela and I grabbed some sorting sticks out of the truck and marched out to the pasture in our mud boots, slipping on the frozen ground. It was about what you would expect being in a field of Brangus cattle. Angela and I start looking around uneasily at the heifers and cows running around us. All of them had the spirited high step trot of a saddlebred horse with their long ears perked and their heads carried high. It took a few attempts to get the heifer into the lot. Herding animals in a two-acre pasture with just two people was a difficult process. We would get the heifer we wanted separated out with some of her friends just to have them turn around and run to the back of the pasture. “$&%@!,” I exclaimed as I threw my sorting stick to the ground. After some trial and error, we finally got the heifer into the mud lot. In the process of herding her into the pen, Angela and I were chased up the fence a few times by the rowdy ladies. We finally got her in the pen, coaxed her down the alleyway and into the chute. I set out my OB box, got my gloves and lube out, and went in to see what was going on. After feeling around, I said, “We've got a head back.” This particular presentation is challenging for someone like me with short arms as calves have very long necks, so reaching a head that is bent back can be difficult. I said, “We’ll need to get her out of the chute.” The worst thing in the world is for a cow to go down in the chute as it is difficult to get them out but also difficult to get the appropriate angles to pull the calf. Too late. Right after I said that, the heifer wobbled and went down. “Dadnabbit!” I said again. Or something like that. We got the halter on her and tried to coax her forward to no avail. We then decided that the head catch opening may be too small to drag her out, so we tried the side gait. Turns out the latch was frozen solid from the latest ice storm. We found a huge hammer and finally got it loose after hitting it enough times. Turns out this was also good stress relief. After shoving, grunting, and maybe even a little cussing, we got the heifer out of the chute with the halter tied to a nearby post. After even more shoving and grunting, I got the head straightened out and we pulled the calf. “It's a live one!” I said, which is always good news to the farmer. We finished caring for the heifer and her calf and started to put our stuff out of the way before we let her loose. As I went over to the opposite side of the gate to release her, she actually slipped out of her halter before I could make it over the gate, and she came after me. Apparently, she couldn't be bothered to move a muscle when we were trying to get her out of the chute, but I guess now her energy was replenished. I made it to the top of the gate and swooped my legs to the other side as she rammed it with her head and shook the gate back and forth. We were now in a safe spot, but how do we open the lot gate that goes out to pasture without her coming after us? Normally, I would let this be the producer’s problem, but I didn't think this elderly man had any business dealing with that on the icy footing. Unfortunately, we also had to walk through the frozen lot with the crazy heifer in it to get back to the truck. I decided to take my chances and grabbed a few buckets and ventured across the lot. Maybe the heifer would act better in a more open space or be too preoccupied with her calf to worry about us, but neither one of those hopes panned out, and she started to chase me. I dropped the buckets and saw a bail ring in the distance. I ran and jumped in the middle of it to get away from the heifer. While she was distracted by trying to get me through the bail ring, Angela opened the lot gate that went out to the pasture. We were finally able to carry our stuff through the lot and get to the truck. If there's one thing veterinarians know, it's that sometimes our patients can be pretty ungrateful. She went right to her baby and looked back at me with a don’t-you-come-close-with-your- human-germs look. As a new mom, I totally get it now. The farmer said Merry Christmas and we were on our way to celebrate with our families, enjoy food and friends, and I was also crossing my fingers that that was going to be my only on-call adventure for the evening. Going on call was one thing, but I knew better than to get out of the “free” services asked over the dinner table. I’m just wishing that a close family member would become a chiropractor so I can at least get fixed up after Christmas calls like that one.
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If you follow my blog regularly, you may have noticed I've taken a little break from the blog world. I've been just a little busy. The birth of my son has caused a major lifestyle change for me. For instance, I'm currently typing this blog one-handed on my cell phone while my son sleeps in my other arm. Anyway, I thought it would be fitting to describe the start of this life change. I'm not going to call it a birth story because that usually elicits eye rolls (at least it did in my former self). It all started on October 25th. I was just over 38 weeks pregnant. Aside from the headaches I'd had the last few days, I felt pretty good. So good, in fact, that I was betting our baby (referred to as Pip at the time) would likely come late. Let's just say there's a reason why I don't gamble. I went into work as usual and saw some appointments that morning. I left at around lunch time for my weekly appointment with my OB. As I left, I waved goodbye and said, “See you in a few hours!” to my staff. I stopped by my mom’s house and we made our usual stop at my favorite Indian restaurant before my appointment just like many appointments before. When I arrived at my doctor’s office,the nurse called my name, and I walked on back for my blood pressure and weight check. My nurse said, “You have quite a bit of swagger for someone at your stage in pregnancy.” “Swagger,” I thought to myself, “I like it!” As the nurse put the cuff on my arm and checked my blood pressure, she got a wrinkle of concern in her forehead. As she rechecked it, she inflated the cuff to the point that I thought my arm may fall off. “Sorry,” she said. “Your blood pressure is pretty high.” I don't think too much of it at the time, figuring it might have something to do with the extra strain of an eight-month-along body in unusually warm weather, bad genetics, a buffet full of delicious sodium, or just the regular stress of trying to get snooty cats to do anything or 900 pound “calves” to stay calm during castration. My doctor examined me and then told me that my baby was once again breech. This was bad news. In the past three weeks, Pip had flipped from breech position to head down to back to breech position. This baby was high drama. I thought to myself, “How could Pip possibly have enough room in there for all of this gymnastics?” My doctor said, “Your blood pressure is pretty high.” I responded, “Yeah. That's random!” She said, “Well, I'm sending you over to Labor and Delivery for serial blood pressure readings to make sure it isn't random.” As I walked across the sky walk to the hospital, I called my husband at work and told him that I had high blood pressure and they were sending me to the hospital for monitoring and lab work. He was initially quite confused as he'd forgotten I even had an appointment that day, but I wasn’t too shocked since, for the entirety of this pregnancy, he would generally look at me when someone would ask when our due date was. As I got settled into the room, I kicked my feet up in the hospital bed and checked out the cable TV, which is a luxury item for those of us who don't have it. “I wonder if Real Housewives is on,” I said to myself. I may have even sent my husband a photo of my feet kicked up with the cable TV in front of me with a caption that read something like, “Life is rough.” He responded with some expletives as he was roofing on a warm day. Clearly, neither one of us were taking this very seriously. Nurses came in and out measuring my BP and getting samples for lab work. I started to get concerned as my BP continued to climb. A nurse came in and said, “Dr. Smith (not the real name) is monitoring your BP closely. Try to relax. Oh and by the way, if your blood pressure continues to stay high, you're having this baby tonight.” Relax. Riiiiight. The nurse then came in and told me that I had pre-eclampsia and my doctor had said they will deliver my baby via c-section tonight, and that she would be in to talk to me soon. They took away my water, and I immediately regretted eating the salty Indian food for lunch that afternoon. The headaches I'd been having for the previous few days started to make sense. The reality hadn't sunk in yet, but I called my husband and told him he better head to the hospital. He asked if he had time to go home and shower. Knowing the surgery would be a few hours away and also knowing how my husband smells after work, I said yes, but inside I was screaming, “Get here now with a double cheeseburger. No, I’m not really hungry, but they just said no food, so now I must have some! Oh yeah, and I am having a BABY!” My doctor came into the room and did one last ultrasound to confirm Pip’s placement and lo and behold, Pip had flipped one last time into head down position. Like I said, high drama. The good news was I didn't need to go straight to c-section. My nurse then asked me what my birth plan was. Honestly? My only plan was to have a baby. I guess I figured there was no sense in wasting my time planning for something that you can't plan for. Anyone who thinks they have any control whatsoever over the birth/delivery process is only kidding themselves, as I was so hurriedly learning. Anyway, I was induced that night and endured 10 hours of terrible contractions, not-so-patiently waiting for the point in my labor where I could get an epidural. After running three marathons, including the Boston Marathon, and castrating for a living, I felt my badass status was already solidified. Not to mention that I routinely give my cow patients an epidural during delivery, so I figured I could afford myself the same luxury. Unfortunately, they want your labor to progress to a certain point before you can get an epidural because they're sadists that like to see women in pain. Just kidding! Kind of. During those 10 hours of labor I had images of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and wondered if torture was somewhat like that. Once the sweet relief of the epidural came early the following morning, things progressed pretty quickly. Our son was born around noon. The delivery process was somewhat of a blur, but my husband tells me I was making cow comparisons with the doctor the whole time. The baby was small, just weighing in at 5.5 pounds, but he had a healthy set of lungs. We named him Leland James. Everything went pretty smoothly over the next couple of days. On the morning we were supposed to be discharged, the nurse took Leland to the nursery for his regular checkup. I woke up over an hour later, thinking it was strange that he had been gone so long. The nurse came in later and told us that Leland had several apnea episodes (stopped breathing). They had stabilized him, but he was going to need to go to the NICU for further testing and monitoring. I threw on my robe and rushed down the hall. My husband and I looked through the nursery window at our son hooked up to tubes. I began to sob. I may not have had a birth plan, but this was definitely not part of the plan. I was then informed that they would go ahead and discharge me that afternoon. Wait a sec. I'm supposed to leave my son here? Luckily, we got a room at the Ronald McDonald House our first couple of nights since we lived far away. This is a wonderful facility and such a blessing for parents with children in the hospital. I encourage you to donate your time or money to this great organization. Even though we were just across town and likely only leaving for an hour or two to sleep in between feedings, one of the hardest parts of this process was leaving the hospital with my son still there. It seems unnatural and goes against every instinct you have. The next few days consisted of hanging out in the NICU and feeding our son. I wanted to be there as much as possible so he knew we would be there for him. I would never want my son to be in the NICU, but the extra time in the hospital had a silver lining. I got so much great advice on breastfeeding and baby care in general from the nurses and doctors during that time. These first-time parents really appreciated it. A sleeper room in the hospital eventually opened up, which meant I could be even closer to him. I learned that being a NICU mom wasn't easy, but the truth is I only got a small taste of what that's like compared to parents whose children spend weeks or months there. I learned a lot from this experience. Most parents just take it day by day and do what you have to do. You don't know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have. I know what it feels like to try and juggle caring for your child in a facility while handling constant inquiries from friends and family about your baby's status. Having so many people care for your child's well-being is wonderful, but trying to keep everyone informed is stressful, especially when you feel like you're barely keeping it together as a new parent of a sick child. I know what it feels like to always hear, “He's so small!” or “he's so skinny” instead of “he's beautiful” or “handsome.” I went through the ups and downs of learning how to breastfeed in the NICU and crying behind the privacy curtains. There were rough days when my husband and I would find the closest private area (the NICU bathroom) and hug each other and cry. However, this is not a pity party. We got into a routine and figured things out. I even got an opportunity to help a fellow veterinarian in the NICU. Our neonatologist actually approached me and asked if I could talk to Amanda (not the real name). He knew from previous conversations that we were both veterinarians and acquaintances as we were in the same birthing class a few weeks back. She was having the same struggles with breastfeeding that I was a few days prior. I felt kind of awkward approaching her as I didn’t know her that well. I talked with her for awhile, told her that I had been through the same thing, and informed her that it gets better, so don’t give up. It was surprising how much we had in common: both veterinarians about the same age with babies just days apart and similar diagnoses in the NICU. While this conversation was a little awkward at first, it made me feel better and less alone in this process. I hope she felt the same way. I then made my rounds taking chocolates to Labor & Delivery, Postpartum, and the NICU. My son was discharged that afternoon and we left the hospital after eight days there. We came home to a clean house full of warm food and casseroles from people we love and many cards and gifts from friends and family. While this blog post isn’t exactly veterinary related, I think it is important for us to be open and honest about our experiences. Parenting, whether your child is sick or healthy, is an emotional roller coaster. I haven't been a parent for very long, but I've found that if you can ride out the uncertainty and the lows, the highs and the love you feel for a tiny human is totally worth it. Yeah. I'm sure you can tell I'm a bit more corny and sentimental than I used to be. I cry during St. Jude commercials now. But I promise the snarky, sassy vet is still there. She makes appearances throughout the day when some old farmer tells me I’m no longer a heifer and I quip back that it might be time to put him out to pasture. Anyway, that's how my journey of motherhood started. It wasn't what I had imagined, but it never is. It was even better. |
Jessica Stroupe, DVM
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