Meet Minnie, Mickey, and Mickie

I wish I could remember how old I was the year the three of us went to an overnight church summer camp. We were gone for almost a week, and I have very few memories of that experience. However, I really do remember meeting Minnie, Mickey, and Mickie.

Our stay at camp was only about half over when I first met Minnie, Mickey, and Mickie. They were three tiny field mice. They had no hair, and their eyes were not open. They were so small and helpless. After several hours, there was no sign of the parents, so my counselor allowed me to take them back to camp. We found a match box and lined it with kleenex and put the babies in. The nurse gave me a small eye-dropper and I began feeding the babies milk every couple of hours, day and night.

When my mother came to pick us up, she was not too pleased to meet my new found pets. I begged and tried the "they will die if I have to leave them" routine. It didn't work. Finally the camp nurse and the camp director talked to my mother. They told her about my dedication to the babies, and she finally gave in. They were still hairless, blind, and totally dependent so it couldn't be that bad. We stopped and got a small cage and a book on caring for rodents (Guinea pigs I think) on the way home and I promised that they would remain in the garage, which they did, usually.

After a couple of weeks, these tiny babies were regular mice, and they found all sorts of ways out of the cage, much to my mother's dismay. We finally had to take them to a field several miles away, and let them go. Mom was no longer willing to provide food and shelter for them. The experience however, led to my sister and I feeling quite comfortable with lab animals and fostered out interest in medicine. As teenagers, we acquired several white mice, performed a variety of procedures on them, skin grafts mostly, and nursed them back to health. Our biology teachers were impressed with our ability to work with, and care for the animals. Our anesthetic and surgical procedures were very clean. Both of us learned to suture the wounds, and none of our "patients" died. My sister went on to become a nurse; I tried radiology for several years, and at one point in my life tried to open a hospice, but that is another story. I think that was the first time I made a decision that my parents were uncomfortable with.

I wonder if my love of medicine would have developed without those first babies?