It was that time again. Bit overdue for my general physical as I had been searching for quite a while for a doctor accepting new patients. The nurse had given me instructions to cleanse my bowels the night before the appointment by using a Fleet enemaetic and an enema (or two if necessary), followed by a rinsing enema should that be required. This had never been required of me before and I didn't know what this implied. I simply assumed it was the doctor's preference.

Now the day was here. With butterflies in my stomach, I approached the door at the appointed time. The doctor personally met me in the reception area and apologetically explained that his nurse would be unavailable to assist that day and asked me if that was acceptable to me. Since I was already there, it seemed foolish to reschedule, so I responded in the positive.

The doctor then escorted me to the examination room. It was a brightly lit, white and grey tiled room. The doctor briefly looked at my chart and completed the history which I had previously provided, then instructed me to undress completely, handing me a white linen sheet. I did as instructed and sat on the edge of the examining table with the drape wrapped around my body. On the counter I spied two trays covered with drapes. I wanted, yet didn't want, to know what lay on the trays. Being nervous, I held back from peeking, never knowing when the doctor would return.

I heard the knock and the doctor entered. He advised he would do a full exam, commencing by listening to my heart and breathing, taking blood pressure, checking temperature, reflexes, etc. I found he was much more thorough: taking my blood pressure more than once. He advised he was concerned that it was quite high, but I explained that I was tense and didn't like going to doctors, so that might explain it. He chuckled and said "white coat syndrome, hmmh". He asked me to lie back.

He commenced palpating my stomach, reaching under my rib cage, always concerned about my comfort. He reached a spot about my waist level where I became very ticklish, then approached my pudendum, where I did feel some discomfort as he pressed firmly into my flesh, feeling for who knows what.

The doctor then proceeded to do a breast examination, first laying down with my arms above my head, then he asked me to sit up and he carefully felt again for abnormalities. Then he did something I had not seen before. He turned off the lights and looked through my breast tissue with a very bright light which, he said, allowed him to see abnormalities in the breast tissue possibly before they would be able to be palpated. To my relief he found that all was normal.

He asked me to lie back again. The ominous sound of rubber gloves. "Now, Lisa, I just want you to put your feet in the stirrups. Scoot down towards me please. Just a little more." Is there any woman who does not dread those words?! The doctor conducted a visual external examination. Then Dr. J reached into a drawer. I heard the crackle of tearing plastic. He showed me the speculum which had a green handle and showed me how it worked so I would know what to expect when he examined me. After attaching the light, he told me to take a deep breath and warned that this might pinch a little. He opened the beaks wide and moved the speculum into position. Then I felt a tug as he angulated the speculum, spreading the walls of my vagina. "Everything looks fine, Lisa", he reassured me. "Now I'm going to take a pap test. It might hurt a little as I take the sample." I barely felt the brush against my cervix. Dr. J closed the speculum and slowly withdrew it, looking at my vaginal walls as he removed it.

Then there was the warning "This might feel a little cold. I'm just going to put two fingers inside you and feel to make sure everything is okay". Yes, it was cold! Yes, it felt uncomfortable -- no, embarrassing more like it. His fingers inside me as, with his other hand, he pressed into the flesh of my belly. Suddenly I felt the doctor's finger in my anus as he continued to push against my lower belly. Dr. J told me I had a fairly large uterus and that it was angled to the anterior. He mentioned that the anal examination made it much easier for him to feel my uterus.

"As you've mentioned you've been having menstrual irregularity, so I would like to check your uterus for fibroids. In order to do this, I am going to insert an instrument with which I can check the uterine lining. This may smart a bit, but I'll try to make it as comfortable as I can." I heard a tray being moved across the counter. I wanted to look, but instead stared at the white ceiling. Dr. J turned on a bright halogen lamp above his stool. I felt incredibly exposed as he reached between my wide-spread knees. I felt the coolness of metal entering my vagina, as Dr. J inserted a metal speculum and opened it. Dr. J explained that he would have to place forceps, which he called a tenaculum, on to my cervix in order to stabilize it. He asked me if I would like a local anaesthetic, which I declined. He inserted something through the speculum and told me to cough. As I did so, I felt a slight pinching sensation, but that was all. I then felt a tugging sensation as Dr. J inserted the "sound" through my cervix. He explained that the tip of the sound would press against the lining of my uterus as his fingers could feel the vibration of what the tip was going across. I felt pressure, but no pain (thank heavens). He first probed the right side of my uterus and said everything was fine. Then he mentioned he was having difficulty probing the left side of my uterus and that he thought I might have one or two small fibroids, but that they did not appear to require intervention at this time. As he removed the sound, he noted that there was slight bleeding, which was not unusual after this procedure. He had me lay there for a few minutes as he staunched the bleeding with gauze pads.

He then said he wanted to just double check my uterus by palpation now that he had determined that I might have fibroids. More gloves! He placed two fingers into my vagina, while pressing more firmly than before on my lower abdomen. "Lisa, as I mentioned earlier, I can feel you uterus much better when I do a rectal exam. You're going to feel a little pressure." Again, he slipped two fingers into my rectum and felt the back of my uterus through the thin membrane. "Yes, I do believe you have two small fibroids. We'll have to keep a close eye on them." Finally he was done, and he discarded the gloves. I started to sit up, when Dr. J said "Now, Lisa, I'm going to do a rectal exam."

"If you'll just stand up for a minute." Dr. J made some adjustments to the examination table and asked me to kneel on the lowered portion of the table. I was really embarrassed with my posterior totally exposed. Again the snap of rubber gloves. "I'm just going to adjust the table". I heard the whirring sound as I felt my head being lowered and the table rising. My God, my ass is right at his eye level I thought to myself. I felt his lubricated finger at my anus as he gently pushed past the muscle and entered my rectum. He was slowly pushing against the walls of my rectum sliding two fingers deeper than I had ever experienced. He slowly twisted and felt along every millimeter of the surface before pressing back against my sphincter. It felt like forever and I was mortified. Then Dr. J said, "I'd like to get a closer look, just in case.". I didn't know what he meant.

Suddenly I felt something cold and metal against my sphincter. "I'm just going to open you up so that I can get a better look". I felt the metal spreading my anus. "I'm going to take a swab." After doing so, ever so slowly, Dr. J began twisting the instrument clockwise so that he could see every bit of the wall.

Again, the reassuring, "everything looks fine, Lisa. I am, however, going to look a little deeper, if you don't mind. For that we'll use something that's called a sigmoidoscope". I didn't really know what that was. I had only heard a friend say that it was most unpleasant, so I was not looking forward to this! But I now understood the reason for the prep enemas. I had never been to so thorough a doctor before. I heard the sound of metal clanking on the tray as Dr. J prepared.

New rubber gloves: the sound I was starting to thoroughly dislike! "Now take another deep breath. This might be a bit uncomfortable." Again with the "uncomfortable". Every time he said that, it was an understatement. I felt the probe enter me. "I'm going to have to insert a bit of air to help maneuver the sigmoidoscope through your colon." I felt the quick bursts of air enter me. What an odd feeling. I could actually feel the walls of my rectum expanding to allow the probe to pass. "Now you might feel a little pressure here as we're coming to a curve we have to go past."

I expected some pain, but really felt nothing but a bit of a tug as he pushed forward. "Now I'm slowly going to retract as I look closely at the walls." You mean that was IT, I thought excitedly, glad that the worst was over. However, the pressure as Dr. J thoroughly examined me was indeed uncomfortable, but easily tolerable. At last, my sensitive anus felt the end of the sig. I was relieved it was over. But I was wrong!

"Lisa, I would like to obtain some samples to send to the lab. Don't worry, it is just precautionary. For this, I'm going to have to use a slightly larger sigmoidoscope." He allowed me to rest for a minute. Then more noise of metal. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Deep breath, please."

Again, I felt a probe. By now, I was full of the air pumped into me with the previous sigmoidoscope, so this seemed a little easier. It seemed an eternity as Dr. J slowly pushed the scope deep into my bowels, every once in awhile squeezing the bulb forcing air into my innards. Again the slight tug (along with a bulb of air) at the sigmoid. Could this be becoming "routine" to me? Somehow I didn't think so! At last, I felt Dr. J starting to retract. Relief. Slowly, stopping every so often to swab, I felt the scope slide past my sphincter. "All done". At last. "Let me help you up." I sat on the table, regrouping after this indignity.

"You can get dressed now and I'll be back shortly", said Dr. J, exiting the examination room.

With weak legs, I dressed, glad my physical was over for another year. When he returned, Dr. J advised me that he was going to schedule me for a colonoscopy because he did see some areas of concern. He described what a colonoscopy was and showed me on a diagram how far the sigmoidoscope had probed and how much further a colonoscope could go. He explained that the rigidity of the sigmoidoscopes he had used today was actually more uncomfortable than the flexibility of the colonoscope and that since I had handled the two sigs so well, I shouldn't have any problems with the colonoscope. With that, he requested I telephone his nurse in the morning to set up an appointment. I did so. It was scheduled for approximately one month later.