Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Modern medicine in the cowboy world

by Julie Carter

I once told a story about a blind yearling calf that, in the middle of the pasture, loaded up in the stock trailer on his own. I knew the doubters would come running but what surprised me was where the doubt was directed.

Not at the event itself -- the calf actually ending up in the trailer and the three cowboys with ropes but no horses were as surprised as anyone. One of them was sporting recent shoulder surgery and could be of no help except to claim credit for parking the pickup and trailer at a perfect angle.

One skeptic said he suspected the influence of Crown Royal or at the very minimum, an anesthesia overdose not-yet-worn-off the cowboy sporting the $27,000 shoulder surgery. He called that the second lie. “Greg wouldn’t spend $27,000 on shoulder surgery,” he said. “He won’t spend that on a truck.”

This led to group reflection on cowboys and medicine.

Cowboys are sometimes the biggest babies—too tough to take the doc’s advice or medication but world class at moaning and groaning for the 90-mile-drive back to the ranch. It’s not unusual for the Mrs. to grab the pain pill bottle saying “Give me those blasted pills! One of us needs to feel better.”

Most cowboys will sell their soul to get a body part fixed so they can go back out and do whatever it was they did to hurt it in the first place. And first, always, they will self-medicate with an assortment of over-the-counter offerings even if that counter is at the local honky tonk.

Jeff, on the wise-side of his fifth decade, had a stout three-year old colt buck him off resulting in an emergency room visit. This was followed by time spent with triage nurses, doctors, radiology technicians, family practice physicians, orthopedic specialists and a bona fide physical therapist.

His wife carried a dictionary around to translate their diagnosis, prognosis, treatment protocols, medication and device advice. This was followed by a barrage of bills in the mailbox that took a fair amount of accounting expertise to decipher.

The real problem at hand was getting to the cure. His actual diagnosis was Type 2 acromioclavicular separation, as in “hurt shoulder.” That made logical sense as that is where he landed. If he had just had the foresight to find a soft spot to land all this could have, in theory, been avoided.

Each of the specialists, with a serious direct eye-to-eye gaze, told him to wear the immobilization device. We call that a splint. They advised he not lift anything including his arm and it would be six weeks before he move anything except his lips to moan.

Next was the electric stimulation to the muscles to facilitate healing and a very dedicated physical therapist determined to bring wellness no matter the pain level. In a moment’s time the cowboy was promoted from complete immobility to lifting weights over his head.

A series of repetitive moves with pulleys, weights and other devices ensued, moving the cowboy into a realm of exercises he couldn’t have done before the accident, let alone while on injured reserve.

The cowboy declared there was nothing about roping that was as physically hard as what the therapist had him doing. So he went home from therapy, saddled his horse and roped a pen of steers just because he could.

Hee Haw’s multi-talented Archie Campbell played many rolls on the 60s-70s variety TV program, one of which was the leering doctor giving sage advice to his patients that would hold true still today.  “If it hurts when you do that, don’t do that.”

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.