Vet on the Loose Read Free Page A

Finbar told me it was time to go back to the house for tea. In the warm kitchen we did justice to the mouth-watering food prepared by Finbar’s wife Andrea, who laughed as she told me that I had done well to survive the first day. Throughout the meal, their four children, ranging in ages from ten to twenty-two, passed in and out, obviously well used to yet another aspiring vet joining them at the table.
    I didn’t know then, that this was to be the first of many meals I would share with the family. The experience reinforced my growing conviction that I had finally found my place in life.
    The week passed in a flash and all too soon I was back at school, toiling through my third set of mock Leaving Cert exams. I did reasonably well at these, but my mind was still filled with lambing ewes and lame horses. The next time I went back to Finbar’s, it was as a bona fide veterinary student, having finally become familiar enough with French grammar, mathematical theories and Shakespearean plays to obtain the required number of points for veterinary medicine.
    That summer, I left school behind me forever and immersed myself in real life – scouring calves and itchy dogs. I even calved my first cow! And all before even going to college.

CHAPTER TWO
     

COLLEGE DAYS
     
     
    A fter my third time sitting the Leaving Certificate exams I was finally offered the elusive DN005 – VET MED, and it seemed that heaven had come to earth. That summer was spent in a blur of ecstasy. Nothing could dent my overwhelming enthusiasm, although at times it all seemed too unreal to be true. I took to driving the long way home from routine trips just to pass by a veterinary surgery and peer in the window, or to see a brass plate hanging on the wall.
    The university prospectus arrived in due course, filled with terms like ‘clinical anatomy’ and ‘veterinary pathology’, which, although I had little idea what they meant, filled me with unprecedented excitement.
    At last, on a frosty October morning, the day dawned for my life as a student of veterinary medicine to begin. I had often passed the college in Ballsbridge on the way into town but had not realised that the entrance on view was not the main one but a side door to a lab which remained permanently locked. Rattling the door and seeing no sign of life, I wondered could I possibly have got the day wrong until two other new students joined me and we fell into conversation.
    ‘Are you really interested in animals?’ began one.
    ‘Oh, God no,’ replied the other. ‘I wanted to do medicine but thought for a laugh that I would put down veterinary first. I never thought I’d get the points.’
    ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ replied the other. ‘I wanted to do science but I filled in the wrong code in the CAO form.’
    I kept my mouth shut, silently stunned by this sacrilege.
    By the time we had located the correct entrance and made our way up the stairs to the lecture hall, we were late and the general introduction was in full swing.
    Despite this inauspicious start, we all got into the run of things fairly quickly as freshers’ week broke the ice and our lectures got underway. Before we knew it, we were well established in the routine of spending half the week on campus in Belfield doing the basic sciences along with the medical students, and then the second half of the week in the veterinary college in Ballsbridge. Here we became deeply acquainted with the body of a preserved greyhound which would accompany us on our tour of anatomy for the remainder of the year. It surprised us how fond we became of Patch, as we christened him in our first practical. We listened with scarcely disguised admiration to the second years, whose job it was to fill us in on the general run of things, and familiarise us with the necessary requirements for the year ahead.
    The twenty-five-week academic year – although it seemed to slow up and almost come to a standstill around exam time – generally flew by in