Personal Narrative: The Frog That Changed My Life

When I was thirteen years old, my mind was on frogs—dead frogs, to be specific. The only criteria that a frog had to meet in order to even slightly seize my interest was that it had to be dead. Several summer days were filled with me scouring the inside my pool’s filter, desperately searching for unfortunate souls that had met a watery end. Any specimens found would be placed under the knife of my beginner’s-level dissection kit. I took this fascination as a sign that a career in pathology was in my future. However, one fateful operation led me on a new path, one geared toward aiding the creation of one of life’s most precious experiences—motherhood.
The frog that changed my life was especially plump. I distinctly remember crouching at the pool’s edge, watching its fat belly poking out just above the water, bobbing like a cork. I let it float while I
Cold steel lightly kissed soft, flaccid flesh. Pressing down further, the skin’s outer layer was punctured, allowing the water trapped beneath to trickle out. My shaky fingers pulled the knife’s handle downward, making one long incision from the pectoral region to the pelvis, followed by a horizontal cut at either end of the new opening. The metallic fingers of the forceps pinched back the two wrinkly flaps of tissue. The process was then repeated in order to remove the inner membrane that encased the abdominal organs.
The familiar elation that enveloped me during every autopsy I performed returned as I was reminded of how some creatures aren’t so different after all. Many similarities between the internal systems of a frog and those of a human were highlighted in my mind—a heart, two lungs, bulging stomach, flabby liver. It wasn’t the body itself that sent chills up my spine, but the notion that I was poking and prodding at everything that makes us alive. I was touching my own