I am 40, but I feel younger inside. I am sitting in the waiting room of my doctor's office, about to have my annual physical. Going to the doctor always makes me regress. There is something about the setting that is infantilizing. I have to give up my need for control and make myself vulnerable. I have to discuss all that is happening with my body, including the gross or embarrassing parts that I would never talk about with others. Then I have to allow another person to touch all of the parts of my body. I am very afraid of needles, and I have to work hard to keep from passing out or shouting in pain when I am having needle procedures.

But today is different. I learned about a doctor who understands the special needs of adults who feel little inside. This is my first time making an appointment. I'm apprehensive but also a little hopeful. When I made the appointment over the phone, the office manager suggested that I bring a friend with me as a caregiver. I asked Jennifer if she could be my mommy for the day, and she jumped at the chance. She's really good with littles like me.

We showed up for the appointment 15 minutes early, as the office had suggested. The office manager greeted us with a smile, and I got to put a face to the woman I talked to over the phone. She was wearing a scrubs top with Hello Kitty prints. “Hi! I'm Miss Julia. You must be Robby,” she said to me. “Who have you brought with you?” Jennifer introduced herself and said that she is sometimes a caregiver for me. Miss Julia handed Jennifer a clipboard with some papers. “I'd like you to fill out this paperwork before we begin,” she directed.

We went to sit down on the chairs in the waiting room. These chairs were bright yellow, unlike the ones in my last doctor's office. There was a fish tank in the corner, and I started looking at it as Jennifer filled out the papers. I was so glad that I didn't have to do this. I always would get frustrated with the vague questions and wondering whether or not to check certain boxes.

“Sweetie, they have a question here that asks for your mental age. What should I tell them?” Jennifer asked.

“About six,” I answered. That always seemed to be the age that I regressed to. I think it was because that was the age when I started to become aware of how strange doctor's offices could be.

Jennifer finished the paperwork and handed it back to Miss Julia. “Come on back!” Julia invited us. I was so surprised, because usually you had to wait a long time at the doctor's office. A nurse opened the door and pointed to a red line painted on the floor. “I'm Nurse Terri. Let's follow the red line until we reach the fire truck room,” she said. I walked along the line behind Terri, using it like a balance beam, until we reached the end of the hall and the line took a bend to the right into a small room. Julia opened the door in front of us and ushered us in.

The room immediately took me back to my childhood. It looked like Dr. Little had furnished his office by going in a time machine to the 1980s. The walls were painted bright blue and were decorated with a border motif of red fire trucks. On one side of the room was a tall table like a diaper changing table, with a baby scale next to it. On the other side was a rectangular exam table with a brown vinyl cushion covered with plain white paper. Next to the larger table was a Detecto balance scale. In between the two exam areas were a rolling stool for the doctor and a vinyl bench for the caregivers. There was a big funhouse mirror on the wall that made you look funny.

“Let's start with your height and weight,” Terri instructed. “I'd like you to slip your shoes off and stand on the scale for me.” I took off my Velcro sneakers and hopped over to the scale on the cold tile floor. When I stood on the scale, the platform wobbled back and forth. Terri guessed that my 40 year old body weighed at least 150 pounds, so she moved the large weight to 150, then started moving the small weight until it balanced at 165 pounds. Terri wrote down the weight on my paper chart; there was no computer in this office. “Now turn around and face the other way so I can get your height,” she instructed. “Stand up straight.” I turned around and she pulled out the height bar. She had to get on her tiptoes to place the bar level with my head, then read off a height of 72 inches.

“Good job,” she smiled. “Now hop up on the table for me.” She pulled out her stethoscope and old-fashioned sphygmomanometer. “I'm going to roll up your sleeve to take your blood pressure.” She swiftly pushed up my long sleeve knit shirt to expose the upper arm, then fastened the cuff around it. She began pumping, and I loved hearing the whooshing sound while feeling the cuff inflate. “It's just like a tight hug for your arm,” she commented as she began listening for the systolic and diastolic sounds. “Good job,” she said as she wrote down the pressure. She told Jennifer that I was at 120 over 70, which is a sign of good health.

Next Terri reached toward a jar containing glass thermometers. She looked at Jennifer with a questioning face. “Is he ready for the oral thermometer?” she asked. My heart raced and my face flushed. Jennifer said that sometimes I had trouble holding the thermometer in my mouth, and the last time I was sick, she took my temperature under my arm. “Under the arm isn't really accurate,” Terri explained to Jennifer. She then looked at me. “You're now at a mental age of six, and usually that's a good age to learn how to keep it under your tongue. Let's try it that way and see if we don't have to put it in your hiney. Can you do that for me?” I nodded nervously and fidgeted with my legs as she shook down the thermometer and placed a plastic sleeve on it. “Under your tongue,” she said as she pushed it into my mouth. “Put your lips around it like you're kissing it,” she said, miming with her lips. I kept kicking my legs as she placed her fingers on my wrist and counted my pulse. “Almost done,” she reassured me. After two minutes, she took out the thermometer, slid back the plastic sleeve, and wrote down the temperature. “You're normal today. That's good,” she reassured us.

Next, Terri opened a cabinet and pulled out a green cloth gown with teddy bears printed on it. “It's important for the doctor to examine every part of your body. I'd like you to get undressed except for your underpants. You can cover yourself up with this gown to stay warm,” she explained. “I'll tell Dr. Little that you're ready, and he'll be here in a few minutes.” She left the room with a smile.

I took the gown and handed it to Jennifer, then started to unbutton my shirt. I remember that buttons used to take me a while to get right, so I go slowly as I unfasten the three buttons on my red shirt, then pull it over my head, taking the white undershirt with it. I hand them to Jennifer and she untangles the shirts, folds them, and places them on the exam table. Then I unfasten my belt and unsnap my elastic waist jeans. I sit on the floor and pull them off, also turning them inside out in the process, and hand them to Jennifer, too. That leaves just my light blue briefs and my white socks with red stripes. When I was six, I was pretty uninhibited about getting undressed, and I'm trying to recapture that feeling now. It wasn't like later, when I was starting puberty and I totally hated getting undressed and letting a strange person see my body. Jennifer opens up the gown for me and shows me how to put it on. I turn around and look at myself in the funhouse mirror, making my underwear appear huge in the image. Then we settle in for the wait until Dr. Little arrives.