The vertically challenged and CPR

The vertically challenged and CPR

Hi, shortgirls.  I hope this finds you well amidst this global pandemic that just won’t seem to go away. I thought it was time for some levity, we all need to laugh a bit, and right about now if I don’t laugh I just might cry.

So first some good news, my daughter who graduated (virtually of course)with her Master’s in Speech and Language Pathology got a job in her field, yay!  This all came about pretty quickly. They offered her the job doing teletherapy as part of a summer school program on a Thursday and expected her to start on the following Monday. Not happening, it was the July 4th holiday weekend and with the laundry list of things she had to get done, I’d have a better chance of going to the movies than she had of getting everything done in such a short span of time. 

One of the items on the list was a Basic Life Support Class, really it was just CPR. I’m still confused as to why she had to get this done before she started since she is doing “Virtual” therapy, but not my rules.

The class was for health care professionals and there were a lot of nurses and it was a refresher course for most.  Now my daughter has taken CPR at least once in her 24 years on this planet and she knew what to expect. So apparently these “dummies” are now “smart” and have sensors in them to tell you if you’re not doing compressions correctly etc. Every “dummy” is numbered and you get a score that’s displayed up on a board so that participants can check their progress. Sounds good.

My daughter is moving right along and practicing her compressions when the instructor, we’ll call him “Dick” because that seems appropriate, comes over to her. He tells her that because she’s “vertically challenged” she can move her dummy to the chair instead of the table. “Nope I’m fine”, she says to him and continues with her compressions.  She told me that he kept making comments about checking your score to make sure you are doing everything correctly, announcing them to the whole class by looking right at her. A second time he mentions that she’s vertically challenged and it might be easier for her to move the dummy to the chair. Well now she’s getting pissed, he’s singling her out and, by the way, she was doing all of her compressions perfectly, a 100 score on the board for her “dummy” thank you very much, all 5 feet of her!  That’s exactly what she tells him. “My score is 100, I’m good.” That’s right “Dick” she was doing it perfectly!

So shortgirls don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something, don’t let them talk down to you (figuratively that is) and certainly don’t listen to “Dick”!  Short but mighty, shortgirls rule!

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