I'm Kelsy. I'm a nurse. I work the night shift on a crazy surgical unit and you would not believe the stuff that happens when sick people sleep. To hear more about that and other stories read on....

Monday, March 28, 2011

Wow, she's tall.

Very often my patients ask how tall I am.  It's something I'm becoming very used to.  Now I don't help myself much because I wear shoes that add an extra two inches, but it's because they are good shoes.
I can't even tell you how many patients I've had that see me come into their room, lean over them to listen to their heart with my handy-dandy stethoscope, and while I'm listening they say (which comes in very loudly through the stethoscope), "How tall are you?"  I respond by saying, "5"10."
That's when the male patients say, "Did you play sports?" and the female patients say, "Wow, I bet you find it hard to find jeans."  And to both of these questions I say, "yes, and yes."
Usually when I go into a patients room to do something with them, or help them up or something, I always raise the bed up, so as to save my back.  A few times I've taken someone in to help me boost a patient up in bed.  This consists of one person on each side of the patient and on the count of three we take a draw-sheet from under patient and boost them up closer to the head of the bed.  When I go in I raise the bed up, and twice I've forgotten and the helper I brought in with me has to say, "Kelsy, umm, that's a little too high for me.  I can't reach."  Oops, my bad.
When I was younger I was very shy about my height.  I always wore flat shoes and didn't always stand straight.  Now I'm totally over that, hence wearing the two-inch heal shoes, fondly referred to as my Danskos.
I couple months ago I went in to assess a patient at the beginning of my shift.  He had several family members in the room, so we made small chat while I worked, then I stepped out of the room to fiddle with my computer.  As I was standing outside his room I heard him say, "Now how tall do you guys think she is?"  I had to quickly push my computer away so I could have a good laugh at this.
Yes, people, I'm tall and proud of it.  I usually have to buy extra long jeans, and as you can see on the picture above, sometimes I have to duck my head when I go through that doorway.  But it's how God made me and at least for today, I'll embrace it.  And I'll keep wearing those tall shoes.  When I don't wear them I feel short.

7 comments:

Julie said...

You are funny. :) I think what is surprising is what a huge difference there is in height between you and your sisters...you got all of those genes. I like your scrubs too, by the way! And I think you are the perfect height.

Kelsey said...

Tall girls might have trouble finding jeans, but I think we have a much better view than those shorter folks :)

~Sue said...

Hooray for embracing tallness; I love those scrubs too; you look gorgeous; you are not a "new nurse" anymore, you are way experienced~ but keep the "rambling" coming!

Kristen said...

You are so funny sister!

My word: pestio

Do you think that has something to do with being a pest? Just to clarify, I don't think you are a pest...
anymore that is! love you!

Stephanie said...

We love tall girls!

Unknown said...

ps did you mean to look so ticked in that picture?

Unknown said...

Actually, that's me, your sister, on John's computer! Ha! This happened to me on Julie's blog too!