Cow Mittens

In every vet student's life, there comes the day when you finally put your hand up a cow's arse.

This is, in fact, one of the more exciting events in third year--partly because it's a big milestone, and partly because the lab that week is only one hour instead of two or three. By the end, they pretty much have to kick us out, but it can only be an hour because it starts irritating the cows, so they get all oedematous and you can't feel anything anymore. It also kills your arm.

The first step is to get a plastic apron. For us, these are on hooks that are quite a bit above my head, and they are also aprons made for giants, so I have an awkward time getting one down. Then you tie it around yourself to create a plastic wall that goes straight to the floor for an average height woman, and shuffle across the room with it. The next step is to don the plastic gloves, or rather, the plastic sleeves. They're usually yellow or orange and there are a few difficulties in getting them on. The plastic sticks together, so everyone is blowing down their sleeves like balloons to try and get them to puff out, and trying to peel apart the fingers and wedge their hands in. You pull the sleeve up over your shoulder and hope that it stays there, but they are such a weird size and shape this doesn't work for everyone.

Then, as some students bring in the cows and direct them into holding area, the rest of us line up. There are big containers of lube that you upturn onto your hands, and I always manage to spill a bunch on the floor doing so, and you rub it all over the plastic sleeves. The last thing to do is pick a cow, and maybe listen to whatever the professor says.

The very first time, he gave us a quick rundown of all the things we could palpate per rectum before we moved on to the reproductive tract (which is the main point of doing this in a cow). He started off pointing out the aorta up top and how you can feel it beat, as well as the bifurcation as it splits off towards the legs, and I got so distracted looking for it and then being excited about it that I totally missed the rest of the "quick rundown." I remember the left kidney and the rumen but I'm not sure what else he said.

The rest of the time of that lab, and every other attempt after it, was spent trying to find the stupid uterus. Supposedly the cervix is the easy part to feel, and you use that to pull up the uterine horns and ovaries. My classmates were always like, "I can feel a corpus luteum!" or "I think there's a follicle on the left ovary," and I have no idea how they managed that so quickly. Sometimes I could quickly find the cervix, but when I tried to pull up the uterus I could never find the bifurcation. Other times, I felt a hard ball that certainly must have been an ovary, but there was no cervix to be found (and as soon as I let go, I couldn't find it again, of course). It got even more difficult later in the year when the cows were pregnant--I really have no idea how to tell what is going on inside those cows. Pregnant? Not sure. How far along? Definitely no clue.

The ridiculous part of doing this is the peristalsis on the part of the cow. In the middle of you rummaging around in there trying to find stuff, occasionally there is a sudden increase in pressure that squeezes all the way down your arm. The first few times, I wasn't expecting it, and it pushed me right out of the damn cow. Then I learned you just have to let go, relax your arm, and wait for it to pass. There is literally nothing I can do until the wave is done--you would not believe how strong it is! This is part of the reason your arm gets tired.

Finally, the lab we had at the beginning of this year, I could consistently find the uterus and ovaries. Finally. Still not so sure about pregnant cows.