Where is the Volar Pouch

D. E. Larsen, DVM  

Dr. Adams was a massive man, both in his physique and in his professional reputation. He was not tall, less than six feet, but very muscular. His rugged facial features made him appear to have a scowl on his face in the best of times. In those moments, when he was mad at a horse or a student, some would say he was fearsome.

There was a story while we were in school about Dr. Adams attending a meeting of equine veterinarians. The first presenter was doing a ground-up portrait of the perfect equine veterinarian to lighten the audience. 

He started with the feet, then the legs, on up to the chest and arms. The picture was that of a cartoon gorilla. In actuality, it portrayed Dr. Adams pretty close. Dr. Adams was in the front row and was becoming red in the face because it seemed everyone except the presenter recognized the similarity to Adams. I have no idea if the story was true, but it was told a lot in those years.

However, he was a great teacher. When I was assigned to him for my senior rotation in large animal surgery, I was thrilled. That thrill did not last long.

On the first Monday morning of my two-week rotation, the Junior student and I waited in front of the large animal surgery room. Finally, Dr. Adams arrives at 8:00 AM sharp.

“Good morning, Guys,” Dr. Adams says. “You two are lucky. We have a busy couple of weeks coming up. I want to get off to a running start here.”

He throws up an x-ray of the lower leg of a horse on the viewer.

“Where is the Volar Pouch, Larsen?” Dr. Adams asked. 

“Um,” I stammer.

“Jon, same question?” Dr. Adams says to the junior student.

“I guess I don’t know,” Jon replies.

“Okay, let’s get started on the day,” Adams says. “But, you two have an anatomy test in my office at 1:00 PM on Wednesday. If you fail that test, you fail the rotation.”

And if the rumors of Adams’ power were correct, we will play hell graduating if we fail the rotation. This was not only intimidating, but it was also damn scary.

When the casework was done for the day, Jon and I were in a rush to get home. I had managed to get through the first 3 years of Vet School with little studying outside of the classroom and clinic. Now, I had a couple of nights to review the anatomy of the horse in exquisite detail. 

Dr. Adams was the author of Lameness in Horses and enjoyed the reputation as the leading authority on the horse’s legs. That gave us a clue. Make sure you know every detail of the anatomy of the horse’s legs.

For the next two nights, I reviewed my anatomy notes from my freshman year. I committed the equine section of Sisson’s book, The Anatomy of Domestic Animals, to memory. My memory is pretty much photographic. I can save pictures in my mind, but not text. On occasion, I can save captions to the photos for a brief time.

Finally, Wednesday came. We had surgery scheduled for the morning. Dr. Adams was a skilled surgeon. In this jumper, there was a chip fracture of a carpal bone. A significant amount of the time involved getting the horse under anesthesia and positioned on the surgery table. The surgery was brief in Dr. Adams’  hands. The chip was removed, and Dr. Adams left the closure to his intern and senior student, me.

“Don’t forget the test in my office at 1:00,” Adams said as he pulled off his surgery gloves.

“We’re looking forward to it,” I replied with an unseen smile, but I am sure it reflected in my eyes.

Adams smiled and departed the surgery room. 

When the horse was recovered, and back in the stall, Jon and I had a full hour and a half for a final review.

“I am going to take Sisson and go grab a coffee and a sandwich over at the MU,” I said.

“That might be good,” Jon said. “I will join you, but I think I have had my quota of coffee for the week.”

There was no real conversation at the table. We ate a quick sandwich, and both did a final review of Sisson. My pages turned much quicker than Jon’s. When the time came, we got up and walked back to the hospital. 

Dr. Adams’ office was on the second floor of the hospital. When we turned the corner to his office, we ran into a crowd of classmates. Word of our test had spread through the classes, and everyone wanted to watch. It must be like a crowd viewing a hanging. We worked our way through the crowd and took our seats in the office.

These professors all tried to present themselves as intimidating as possible. I found it almost laughable. In my last year in the Army, it was common for me to make presentations at general staff meetings, for generals with 2 or 3 stars on their collars. They were much more formidable than any professor. So in this situation, I was pretty relaxed. Jon was not so much.

Dr. Adams wasted no time. He started firing questions, some oral, some with x-rays on the viewer, and some with pictures from slides projected on to the wall. Like all tests, they are easy if you are prepared. I think the fact that both of us didn’t miss a question was getting to Dr. Adams. 

“You haven’t asked about the volar pouch,” Jon said.

“I figured that would be the question you studied first,” Dr. Adams said. “But since you mention it, why don’t you tell where it is located and what it is, and why it is important on that x-ray I had Monday morning.”

“The volar pouch is an extension of the joint capsule and is located between the cannon bone and the suspensory ligament, just above the sesamoids of the fetlock. If it is distended, it indicates inflammation in the joint.”

“That’s a good answer, Jon,” Dr. Adams said. “You should not overlook that on an x-ray.”

“If you did an adequate clinical exam, you should know it is distended before the x-ray is ever taken,” I said.

“That’s a good point, but in this business here, I am often looking at x-rays of horses that I didn’t examine,” Dr. Adams said.

Finally, he puts a picture on the wall. This was a picture of the two planter nerves on the lower front legs of a horse. There is a nerve that communicates between these two nerves. It crosses the leg at an angle. . You could tell which leg you were looking at by the directing that this nerve was running between the two primary nerves. This was a picture right out of Sisson.

“Larsen, what leg is this?” Dr. Adams asked.

“The left leg,” I said. “The left front leg,” I added.

“How do you know that?” Dr. Adams asked.

“That is the picture out of Sisson,” I said. And then, looking at a blank wall, I used my finger to trace the words in the caption of that picture as I read the caption.

The hallway audience erupted in laughter.

Adams shook his head and smiled. “That’s all I have, I can’t top that.”

That could have been the only time I ever saw the man smile. There was never a mention of the test in the remaining time days of the rotation. We learned a lot, and even though I was not fond of horses, I learned everything I could from the man.

Photo by Laila Klinsmann from Pexels

Several Days in February

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I looked for a spot in the trunk for my bag. There were six of us stuffed into the sedan for our trip to Nebraska. My bet was, I was the only one who had been in the military. You didn’t need to bring your entire wardrobe for a one week trip. 

We were going out to spend a week helping a progeny test herd of 600 heifers during the calving season. The herd belonged to Diamond Labs. They were collecting ease of calving data on their bulls to be used for their semen marketing. Six of us would drive out on this Sunday morning, and the 6 guys out there would take the car and drive home. Diamond Labs had a house on the place for us, and we took meals in a restaurant/bar in the small village near the ranch.

The drive out of Fort Collins was away from the mountains and out across the prairie. It was a four-hour drive across some for the flattest land in this country. I settled into a corner of the back seat and tried to catch a couple of hours of sleep.

“Larsen, how can you sleep when we are driving through some scenic country?” Mike said.

“One thing you learn in the Army is to sleep anywhere,” I said. “You go up on the mountains out of Fort Collins, Mike, and you can watch the riverboats on the Mississippi River.”

“That can’t be right,” Mike said. “That can’t be right, can it, Jim?”

“He is toying with you, Mike,” Jim said. “He doesn’t have much to say about this flat country.”

It was going to be a cold week. Daily high temperatures were 20 below zero. Overnight lows were pushing 40 below. This will be a great learning experience, but we will pay for it by enduring some harsh temperatures.

The group that was going home was glad to see us pull up to the little house. The housekeeper was just finishing up getting the place ready for the new crew. We discussed instructions as briefly as possible, and they were off. The ranch foreman came over to make sure we were settled into the house.

“Here are the directions to the restaurant where you take your meals,” the Foreman said. “It is time for you all to go get lunch. You can take the old crew cab pickup. When you get back, you need to decide on your groups of two. The herd needs to be checked every 2 hours. You pull any heifer who was in labor on your last drive trough. Bring them into the barn, diagnose the problem, and take care of it. That means you pull the calf, do a C-Section, or do a fetotomy, Whatever is indicated.” I will be around in the morning. You go for breakfast at 7:00, Shift change is at 8:00 AM, 4:00 PM, and Midnight.”

Using my military experience again, my first priority was picking out my bunk. When the others realized what I was doing, there was a mad rush to stake their claims.

The restaurant was in what one would have to stretch to call it a town. It was more like a congested area with maybe a dozen buildings. But the food was good, and they appreciated the business that the ranch was giving them.

“Look at that picture on the wall,” I said to Jim as we were setting down. It was a poster of W. C. Fields with one of his quotes.

“During one of my treks through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. We were compelled to live on food and water for several days,” W. C. Fields.

“Bob and I are going to take the first shift,” Mike said. That will mean we will have a short shift today.”

“A short shift today, but also a short shift next Sunday before we leave,” I said. “It all catches up with you sooner or later.”

“Dave and I will take the midnight shift,” Jim said. “That will be the coldest, but also probably the quietest.”

“I guess that leaves the 4:00 to midnight shift to Bill and me,” John said as we finished lunch. “I guess we better get back so Mike can go to work.”

Midnight came sooner than I thought. John was up waking us up about 11:30.

“You guys get dressed, and we will have time to go over our notes,” John said. “Make sure you put on your long johns, it is just damn cold out there tonight, and that little heater in the pasture truck doesn’t keep up.”

“Make sure you check the corners of the pastures,” John said. “There is a heifer in labor in the corner by the creek. If she doesn’t have a calf, you should bring her in for help. We didn’t have any deliveries to help. Maybe you will get lucky.”

The pasture truck we had to check the herd with was an old Army ¾ ton. It had a canvas top and probably no insulation anywhere. With a light wind blowing, the 30 below temperature was brutal. The heater in the truck seemed to take forever to warm up and then blowing full blast, it failed to keep the ice from forming on the inside of the canvas top.

“There is the heifer John was talking about,” Jim said as he turned the truck so the headlights would fall on her. “We get lucky on this trip. She already has a calf.”

“How do these calves survive in these temperatures?” I asked, thinking that Jim would have some experience with this cold since he was from Wyoming.

“Some don’t, and a lot of them lose the tips of their ears,” Jim said. “I guess it takes a good momma cow to get them dried off and up nursing.”

Most of the herd was in a hollow in the middle of this ten-acre pasture. Grouping up kept everyone a little warmer, and the hollow provided some protection from the wind.

“Looks like we get to drink some coffee,” I said. “Not seeing any heifer in labor on this trip means we don’t have any work to do on the next trip.”

“I think you spoke too soon,” Jim said as the headlights caught the eyes of a heifer in the far corner of the pasture. He pulled the truck closer.

“It looks like we should watch her a few minutes,” I said.

The heifer was straining hard, and just the tips of the toes were visible at her vulva. Her straining did not let up as we watched, and there was no progress in the fetus’s position.

“What do you think?” I said. “I don’t think we want to leave her for another two hours with that straining.”

“I agree,” said Jim. “She would have to be in the farthest corner from the barn.”

We both got out and got her on her feet and headed for the barn. She seemed to know that it would be warmer there.

“You keep her going,” Jim said. “I will go and make sure we are set up in the barn, then I will come back and follow you with some lights.”

It was a long slow walk to the barn, and while I was expecting some warmth when we got there, I was disappointed.

“Why do suppose people would settle in this part of the country?” I asked Jim. 

“This is great cattle country,” Jim said.

“My bet is, they had a broken wheel on their wagon and couldn’ go any further,” I said.

We got the heifer in the chute and started the propane heater. The heater was going full blast, and you could hardly feel it.

I tied the tail out of the way, and Jim washed her up and did a vaginal exam.

“I think we can pull this one with no problem,” Jim said. “It might be a tight fit, but I think it will come. You might want to check her.”

I washed up, the water was warm, but my wet hands and arm were instantly freezing. The only warmth was inside the heifer. 

We hooked up the calf puller and haltered the heifer so we could release her head from the chute in case she went down during the delivery. It was a hard pull, but the calf was fine when it hit the ground. We move them into a holding pen for the night.

“This guy is a lucky one,” I said. “He gets to spend the night in a warm barn.”

We set up the chute so it would be ready for the next cow. I noticed the water on the ground from where we worked on the heifer was frozen solid.

The thermometer continued to dive as the night grew long. On our third trip through the herd, it was 40 below. One quit trying to stay warm, you just tried to keep from getting frostbite.

Jim noticed the heifer in the corner by the creek.

“We better check that one,” Jim said.

Blowing in my hands and reflecting my breath onto my face, trying to keep some feeling in my cheeks, I looked up and noticed this was the heifer that had calved earlier.

“No, she has been there for several days,” I said.

“Several days!” Jim remarked. “This is our first night.”

This is going to be a long week.

Photo by Chris F from Pexels

Note on My Brother, Larry Larsen

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I started writing bits and pieces in the 1990s. Those writings were brief, maybe all my papers are brief, but those were 200 to 400 words. They helped preserve some of those moments, and I still refer to those notes when pondering a topic.

About this same time, my oldest brother started writing a weekly column in The Myrtle Point Herald, the local weekly newspaper. His column was short stories of his early years in the woods (or the logging industry for those unfamiliar with the vernacular). His column chronicled his life in the woods, and as a small gyppo logging company owner, and then later as a log scaler.

He enjoyed a high level of local notoriety. To think, he didn’t even know how to type, let alone run a computer.

He would write those stories in longhand, and the paper would type them out and publish them. With some encouragement, he compiled them into a small paperback book. He printed several hundred copies, at considerable expense for him. He managed to sell them all for $22.00 a copy.

When they were sold, he was reluctant to go through the printing expense again. I convinced him to put it on Amazon as an ebook.

If anyone wants a different perspective of life in a small West Coast logging town and the work that goes on in the woods. That book is still available on Amazon. 

My brother passed away in 2017 from lung cancer. The events leading up to his death were a story fit for a novel.

Larry had one set of numbers that he played in the Oregon Lottery. He played those numbers every drawing, and he won a lot. Winning 4 numbers several hundred times and 5 numbers a half dozen times. He absolutely knew he was going to win the big pot sooner or later.

After he was sick and waiting for some diagnostics the following week, he had trouble finding the shower Thursday night. His wife would not let him go to town to buy his lottery ticket on Friday morning. He managed to sneak out of the house and drove the 8 miles to town. He made it into the store and purchased his ticket. Then he collapsed. The store called his daughter and daughter-in-law, the ambulance, and the police. Of course, there was a lot of commotion. 

Larry managed to recover enough to get back on his feet and get back into his pickup. He was going home. The police were reluctant to allow him to drive. The daughters tried to talk him into the ambulance. 

With much hesitation on his part, he finally consented to an ambulance ride. He died in the early morning hours of the following day.

What about that final lottery ticket? Would that not be the final irony of a man’s life, if that ticket was the winner.

As it turned out, it was not the big winner, but what an ending to a novel or a life, if it had been.

Link to Larry’s book,

Back in the Day, by Larry Larsen