21. TRAVEL STORIES. A 79-year-old war veteran with agile mind in Perth, Australia in 2010. KINDLE STORIES

TRAVEL STORIES.
Dr Sing Kong Yuen, BVMS (Glasgow), April 2010.

This one-week in Perth, Australia, far away from my practice in Singapore, gave me time to reflect and see life and matters in a new perspective. 

Be proactive is the topic I had been thinking.

Inertia is preferred as it is troublesome and uncomfortable to start something new. The status quo is what most people wanted and therefore, the "opt-out" system of organ donation is being used by governments. If you don't "opt-out" in writing, the law states that you have agreed. Being proactive may lead to undesirable consequences.

Two days ago, I asked a young man to drive me to visit a veterinary practice at 10 am as I would like to educate myself on how vets in other countries were managing their business.

This practice was equipped with laboratory equipment to test for cortisol and thyroxine, blood pressure monitoring, ECG and a breath-rate-monitoring alarm system during anaesthesia. I sat on the bench in the waiting room.

Within 1 minute, the receptionist attended to me. "He's out," the receptionist said. So, I was surprised. He came back soon. This vet was a dynamic successful man in his 40s as he has 2 practices. I was surprised that he has no anaesthetic masks in his practice. 

"No need," he said. "I induced them with drugs." This was a new perspective to me as face masks are part and parcel of practice. For example, I used anaesthetic mask in dogs in shock in emergency Caesarean sections without giving sedation injections. However, each vet has his own successful methods of anaesthesia.

I was surprised that he was allergic to rabbits. "How about horses?" I asked. "Yes," he said. I considered myself fortunate in not being allergic to animals for the past 30 years.

I checked out the ambience of the surroundings as this was necessary for me to assess for the mother of Alice, a vet student who would be doing internship in this practice, as to whether this neighbourhood was relatively safe. It was a typical suburb but unlike my rental unit in Willeton with its manicured lawns and rose gardens and overwhelming one-storey bungalows, this suburb has apartment blocks and low rises. Willeton is said to be a middle to upper class residential area of Perth.

I visited a beautiful lake near the veterinary practice. Many children and families were present on this weekday morning. Pelicans and water fowl were abundant. This was a surprise to me as most parks were quiet.

A 79-year-old war veteran passed by. He was a strong-looking tough man in dark sunglasses, walking a medium-sized Boxer-like dog in this beautiful park. I asked him about the plant with cones of yellow, white, pink, brown and black colours, so commonly seen in parks. It appears on the logo of Murdoch University too.

 

 

"You can suck the nectar from the small flowers of this banksia plant," he said to me and asked whether I wanted to do it. "No, thanks," I said. He walked dogs every morning and boarded them for people. "Do you charge for your services?" I asked. "No," he said. "Just whisky at the end of the walk."

He was 79 years old, had both eye lens replaced, a not so strong heart. But his mind was very active and alert. Many men in their 60s become senile, but he was so mentally alert and could tell me the species of various birds in the park and the whole history of coin-collecting. 

"How do you safeguard your coins?" I asked. I presume he was living alone. "I don't put all my coins in one place," he said. "Some in the bank, some in a safe." 

I asked him, "The thieves can just cart away your safe when you are out exercising the dogs." "My alarm system is connected to the security and in 5 minutes they will come." 

 "A clever thief will deactivate the system," I said. He had the answers, "My safe is underground and it will take a long time to haul it out." 

"The thief will just clear the safe by blowing it open," I said. "Not so easy," the war veteran who is an expert in explosives for the Australian army told me. "I have a steel door to the room." This was one man who was well prepared for all contingencies. He was an expert in old coins and all his expertise is inside his brain. 

"How do you sell your coins?" I asked. "There is a Phoenix auctioneer who charges a fee on successful sale," he said. This is a 79-year-old average man on a pension, but he certainly was not "one foot in the grave." He has daily exercise by taking dogs out for people free of charge. 

On knowing that I am a vet, he said, "In Australia, vets make a lot of money." 

An immigrant who owns the Bull Creek Hawker told me the same thing. "Why do you say that?" I asked the war veteran. "See the skin lump on this miniature pinscher," he pointed to a 1-cm lump on the left chest of the dog. "The vet charges A$50 just to tell me it is a skin lump." 

The successful boss of Bull Creek Hawker told me that it cost over A$100 to consult a vet when the dog has flu while a human being paid $27.00. "So, a man with no garden don't walk a dog," the boss referred to some Cantonese idiom, meaning that a poor man should not own a dog. 

While back from the park to Willeton, my driver who was an undergraduate at Murdoch University switched lanes from the right to the centre to the left suddenly, as he was on the wrong side of the road. 

"What to do?" he asked me as a police car had flashed him to stop. "Get onto a side road," I said. "And stop the car." He was having hand tremors. He was intimidated by the Australian police as they looked physically twice as big as him. The policemen were friendly and gave him a warning not to repeat the incident.

It is 17 Nov 2022 today as I read my article. Twelve years had passed. Was I proactive in the past 12 years of life? I would say I was, but not in the materialistic sense in that I don't own two veterinary clinics. I still have the original one at Toa Payoh Vets.

 

UPDATES AT:
https://2010vets.blogspot.com/2010/04/21-79-year-old-war-veteran-with-agile.html

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BANKSIA

Banksia is an Australian genus of shrubs and small trees that occurs on a wide range of soils including those that are so infertile, wet, or dry, that other woody species do not grow.

 Banksias for the Garden

Banksias usually grow best in well drained soils in a sunny position. Most respond to light pruning, and those which form a woody rootstock (lignotuber) can be heavily pruned. Only low phosphorus fertilisers should be used.

Species native to Western Australia are prone to root-rot fungus and generally do not grow well in parts of Australia which experience high humidity and rainfall in the summer.
Banksias range from low-growing shrubs to trees up to 25 m tall. Some species, for example Banksia ericifolia and Banksia menziesii , are known for their spectacular flower heads. The flower heads produce large volumes of nectar and attract many birds and small mammals to feed on them. Banksias are excellent plants to encourage native animals to the garden.