How Not to Change a Diaper

                                                             Statue

                                                    Wainwright House

                                                     Rye, New York

Proverbs 11:2 NIV

"When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom."

My mother is a retired Registered Nurse and once hoped I would follow in her footsteps. I even considered nursing as a potential career and tested it out. 

The summer before my freshmen year of high school, I volunteered as a candy-striper at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, which is one of the best in the nation.

I was assigned to work in the Convalescence Ward, where I played in a recreation room with the long-term patients.

I took pride in dressing up in my candy-cane uniform and polished white shoes. This was the first time I was exposed to serious illnesses such as anorexia or cancer and injuries that required children to be in traction.

I would play "house" with little girls and cars with little boys. 

It was harder to entertain the sad-eyed teenagers who were lost in emotional issues. They were in a dark world all their own that my toys couldn't reach.

Once, the nurse asked me to change a diaper on a baby, who was asleep in his bed in his room. I was an arrogant 14 year-old who thought I knew everything.

(Now I am embarrassed by this story and wonder why I didn't ask for help. It is, however, the reason I am a teacher and not a nurse.)

The bed had a rail that lowered from the top and one that rose from the bottom. I had to move the rails in order to get the baby out to change his diaper. 

I couldn't figure it out.  I looked for ten minutes for a lever and was too stubborn to admit I didn't know where it was.  

I didn't ask a nurse for help. Instead, I looked at the baby. I sized him up and I looked at the gap between the top and bottom rails.  If I worked it right, I thought I could just slide him through the gap.

I picked him up, so as not to waken him, and got his feet and torso between the rails with no problem.

However, when I got to his head, it turned out to be rounder than I imagined, and I banged him on the head and woke him up, whereupon he let loose with a scream and cries. 

I lowered him into the bed, crept out of the room, and walked rapidly down the hall in terror.

I decided right then medicine was too dangerous a career. I could kill somebody.

I'd look for another profession where I could do less damage.

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Dear Lord, heal the sick and bless those who work with them.