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more relieved if she had taken me up on the offer.
    ‘Do you think you’ll have to operate on her? I’m terrified she might not survive. I know the kids won’t want to go away if they hear she’s having an operation. We’ve been looking forward to this holiday for so long.’
    I could well believe her. With her pale complexion and the bags under her eyes, she looked like she could do with a break, although I wasn’t sure if camping with the lively trio would be much of a rest.
    I hesitated. ‘Let’s give her one more day. Without a radiograph, our only option is to do an exploratory laparotomy , to actually open her up and see what’s going on. But it’s a big operation to put her through and she’s not really sick enough to justify that at this stage.’
    Teresa looked relieved. ‘Whatever you think is best yourself.’
    ‘Just go off and try to enjoy yourselves. We’ll keep her in for the weekend and I’ll let you know how she’s getting on. Just leave me your mobile number.’
    Teresa quietly shed a few tears as she said goodbye. I couldn’t help wondering if I was doing the right thing.
    Melissa, the nurse, came in, laughing, a few hours later. ‘Look what just came in the letter box.’
    It was an enormous card in childish handwriting address to ‘Ms Gemma Kenny’. ‘We love you, Gemma. Get well soon,’ it read. Sarah, Mary and Kate had scrawled their names at the bottom; Kate, by joining the dots. It scared me to think how much this dog meant to them.
    We gave Gemma a stronger dose of liquid paraffin andan enema and I repeated the powerful muscle relaxing injection before settling her down for the evening. I prepared a surgical kit and placed it in the autoclave, hoping that it wouldn’t be required. She seemed to be in good form when I left her but I lay awake, tossing and turning throughout the night. Mad dreams of Furbys and Barbie dolls, squashed in the delicate intestine, interrupted my sleep and I repeatedly woke up in a sweat. I was glad when the dawn broke.
    The next morning, I went in early. I hoped I would find copious amounts of faeces but all that was there was some frothy vomit. I knew I could put it off no longer. Reluctantly , I rang Teresa.
    ‘I’m sorry, Teresa, but I’ll have to go ahead and operate. I don’t want to let her go on any longer.’
    There was a silence as Teresa tried to control the wobble in her voice. ‘I’m really sorry to put you to this trouble, especially on a Sunday, but whatever you think is best.’
    ‘I’ll ring as soon as I’m finished. Try not to worry,’ I reassured her. If only I could follow my own advice.
    Although sedated, Gemma thumped her tail softly as I injected the anaesthetic into her vein. Her head slumped on the table as the drug took effect. Soon she lay, clipped and prepped, under the green surgical drapes. I couldn’t help but imagine the faces of three anxious little girls as I sliced into the smooth skin. Thick wads of fat covered the midline and had to be separated before I could incise into the abdomen. At least now I would know what exactly the problem was.
    I stared in disbelief as I examined the coils of intestine; the colour ranged from healthy pink to congested red, to purple and, in parts, to the blackish colour that every vet dreads. As I carefully manipulated the loops of inflamed tissue, I could get an impression of a hard, irregular substance filling several sections of gut. In between, the loops were bloated with gas. I was well aware of the correct technique of ‘milking’ the foreign body to a piece of healthy intestine and incising into that loop to remove the offending article. But in this case, it wasn’t possible as the obstruction was in not one but several portions of the intestine and seemed to be well trapped in the thickened muscular rings.
    Starting with the biggest section, I cut through the muscle wall and could feel the sharp point of the scalpel blade scrape off a metal-like substance. Picking