The Yorkshire Vet: Encounter with ‘Alabama’ in the bar - Julian Norton
By the time I arrived at Thirsk, the clean-up operation had been completed and once again, everything was calm and under control. I didn’t even need to reach for a mop. But there was one job which Anne thought I could do which would be helpful. And it sounded right up my street.
“There is an American lady- from Alabama- who has just moved to the area and her dog needs various medications which are due to run out tomorrow. She can’t get a taxi to bring the dog to the practice, so I said we’d do a visit. She’s staying at The Golden Fleece. The dog’s called Chevy” Anne explained. I read the brief notes and headed off for an unusual rendezvous in the hotel foyer. I couldn’t recall ever having done such a thing previously, but I thought the examination ought to be relatively simple: it would be more a case of checking the relevant clinical history. The main problem was likely to be that one of the medications came in a non-standard size- obviously common in the US, but not here. The tablet size was 97.2mg to be given twice daily. In the UK, our sensible sizes go like this: 15 mg, 30 mg or 60mg, so I had prepared a selection of tablets in advance to make the dose up to something similar.
I was a bit early and there was no dog nor owner in the foyer when I arrived. I asked at the reception, who knew immediately the room number for the lady from Alabama who had a German Shepherd dog. I imagined there would not be too many guests fitting that description. The manager called her room, but: no response. I wandered out into the dark but twinkly market square, where the lights were sparkling and reflecting off the wet cobbles. Even after dark, Thirsk looks lovely. Maybe Chevy was having a quick walk prior to his vet encounter. He wasn’t there either, so I decided the only thing to do was to order a drink at the bar, which I did.
There is a strange pleasantness about sitting alone in a bar with a quiet pint, watching people come and go and meet each other. I had a brief chat with neighbour who was meeting friends. I held up my paper bag and explained, “I’m just meeting someone to hand over this bag of drugs. It’s a drugs-drop.”
Eentually, the nose of what turned out to be a very fluffy German Shepherd dog appeared in the bar, followed by a lady with tortoiseshell rimmed glasses and a leopard print jacket. This was my mark. We shook hands and, before we got down to the business of discussing the drugs, explained our respective circumstances; me, that I don’t usually drink whilst meeting patients, and Alabama (that’s not her real name, but I happen to really like Quentin Tarantino’s film True Romance in which Alabama is one of the main characters. This was probably my only chance to meet someone either called or from Alabama) went on to explain why she was in this hotel in Yorkshire.
“I’m here for a few days- I’ve just arrived and I’m hoping to rent a flat in town. We’ll be here for a while and then Chevy and I will be going to Europe. I’m not sure where, but anywhere that isn’t the US,” she told me. “Is it that bad at the moment?” I asked, knowing that this was probably lighting the touch paper. It was lucky that this meeting was at the end of the day, and that I did not have to return to the practice to finish a busy surgery, because we chatted for almost an hour. And only some of that was about Chevy’s dose of tablets.