chicus.com

My Quick Physical
Feb 10, 2010
I went in for my yearly-ish physical yesterday. It was pretty uneventful, which obviously isn't a bad thing. I had two questions going into it, one of which was "how tall am I?". It's an odd question but since I kind of feel like I have been getting shorter I figured the easiest way to be certain was to be remeasured at the only place I had been measured in 10 years.

At the beginning of the visit a nurse took me to a room to get weighed and measured. The result is that I was 6'3/4". This seemed odd to me because on my last visit I was 5'11 1/4". Not only had I not shrunk but I had grown 1.5 inches in 15 months. I was skeptical to say the least.

Near the end of the appointment the doc asked if I had any questions and I told him I felt as though I may have shrunk some recently. He looked at my chart and said "You're 6 and 3/4 feet." Yes, I said, but I was 1.5 inches shorter last year and I KNOW I have not grown that much in one year. He didn't disagree but nor did he agree, he just kind of looked at me. "Did you have your feet against the wall when they measured you?" he asked. I said yes while suppressing my real answer "You mean 15 months ago, when I was last here, do I recall the placement of my feet when I was measured? No, I don't recall". He glanced towards the scale/height measuring thing no more than 3 feet from me and 5 from him and then just looked back at me. I kind of looked in the same direction with a thought that I hope was very similar to his. "We could measure me again now just to see if it clears things up." However, since I'm not the most straightforward person and don't like to impose (seriously, that is how it felt) I said nothing. He handed me a couple of papers, I offered a handshake and received a limp one in return, and I was off.

I understand my medical needs are relatively minor right now and he has patients who require more immediate and intensive care than I so he may want to focus his time with them. However, it's pretty sad when a physician can't, or won't, take the time for something as simple as a measurement.

Oh, and if you are wondering, I have a theory on why I may have shrunk. I think my core has become incredibly weak and I'm just generally not standing as straight as I once did. The easy and obvious remedy is to work some ab/back exercises back into my workout routines. At one time I did them pretty religiously but they've definitely fallen by the wayside. Now that I'm back to working out 3-4 times a week I need to try and make sure the workouts are more rounded, rather than focusing on my amazing guns.