"You're going to try to squeeze me in that?" #TallPeopleProblems

I visit the hospital more often than the average person. I like the scenery. Seriously though, if I could get frequent flyer miles from hospital stays, surgeries and stiches, I’d have enough miles to take me to the moon and back. Twice.

The reason this morbid subject is on the operating table this week is because I was recently reminded how difficult it is for someone like me to go through medical examinations by my most recent MRI.

For those of you who are not familiar with an MRI machine, it looks like this, only louder.

Pictured above is an MRI machine. For the record, this is one of the loudest things on the planet, right up there next to a blue whale's sneeze and dropping the shampoo bottle in the shower. That little hole in the center is about 24 inches in diameter. I happen to be exactly 25 inches across from shoulder to shoulder. Awesome. This means I am literally squeezed into the tube, my whole body vibrating because my shoulders are up against the inside of the machine while the giant coils pulsate to create a magnetic field. In the midst of all this, I inevitably hear the operator say, “Try to stop moving.” To which I always have to reply, “I’ll stop moving as soon as the machine does.”

The humiliation doesn’t stop at MRIs. A couple months back, I had to get a chest x-ray. Only one problem: the x-ray couldn’t take a picture of my entire chest in one shot. Oh boy. For each angle that my doc needed, the technician had to take two x-rays, one of the upper half of my chest and one of the lower. I don’t know if you’re keeping track, but that’s twice the amount of radiation from x-rays that we tall people are exposed to.

It’s not always the complicated pieces of equipment that causes problems either. I have to tell the nurses my own height because I’m too tall for the detecto standing scale with height rod. Apparently, when the “height rod” reaches 78 inches, its natural tendency is to sort of… fall off. Needless to say, they don’t let me on that ride anymore.

If you’ve ever wished you were taller, and happen to have a bunch of medical issues, you can take solace in knowing that being short is beneficial at the hospital. If you’re tall and in the hospital all the time… Well, all I can say is that I hope you’re a doctor and not a patient. Don’t fret too much about it though; you’re not alone. Instead, slap a smile on your face, and use the comment box as an outlet for all your frustrations! I look forward to hearing them!