Time When Your Temperature Should Have Been Taken Rectally Butt Wasn't?

When I was eight I came down with a nasty virus. It wasn't the flu and I wasn't very nauseated but my oral temp was 103. The lady who played Alice Brady ran off to become an Episcopalian nun after the show ended. She was speaking on a week night at our parish and my mom really wanted to attend. So she packed me up in the car with a blanket and some boy's life magazines and put me in a classroom while she listened to the lecture. I was miserable the entire time. I don't think my mother realized how sick I was.

When we got home, she checked my temp, orally and called the pediatrician. He said if I got dehydrated enough my parents would have to take me to the hospital for IVs. The entire time she never took my rectal temp. My mother stopped taking RTs when I was six and I think she was respecting my privacy. She even woke me up in the middle of the night to take my oral temperature. If ever there was a reason to take a school age child's RT, this was it.

This happened in the late 1970s, btw.

I never had that problem. I got rectal temperatures well into my teen years. 🍑🌡️🧴🧻

I vaguely remember one particular instance when my parents did not take my temperature rectally when I was a toddler, I either begged or asked for it not to be so my parents took my temperature in my armpit with the glass rectal thermometer.

What an interesting way to phrase this question. I think for me when it didn't take place, I was more shocked and then relieved. I didn't ask why but was glad that I escaped.

I had always got my rectal temperature taken up to the age of 16.

I never minded rt so mom, gram, and my doctor’s nurse took it that way till at age 18 i joined the navy. I was born in 1958. 🍑🌡️🧴🧻

Every time it wasn't!

I don’t think there was ever a time it should’ve been taken rectally BUTT wasn’t, lol. It was me and my bare butt at the doctor’s office up to 13 years old, long past when I could’ve held it under my tongue.

The only exception was the school nurse took an oral temp in 1st grade (?). I was shocked enough to ask “what are the other thermometers for?” (wondering what their cut off age was if a first grader could get an oral temp.) She replied they were for the little kids in kindergarten. I proudly announced I could have an oral temp next time I was at the doctors’ but was shot down. I think that was what really made it a point of embarrassment for me that led to the interest. I knew it COULD be taken in my mouth BUTT wasn’t. And also that other kids my age were having it taken by mouth BUTT I wasn’t. Lol.

There was one time that I could think of. I must have been 12 or 13 and I was in the hospital for a surgery. I had “graduated” out of the main pediatrics ward to a section for adolescents. It was more like the adult section. There were only 2 or 3 beds to a room, they were more careful about pulling the curtains, etc.

Before surgery I developed a sudden fever, as measured with the disposable, flat plastic Temp Dot oral thermometers that they used. My nurse went over to the regular pediatrics section and got a new, still in the wrapper, glass rectal thermometer. She said that she was going to retake my temperature with it because these thermometer were more accurate than the TempDot ones.

I could clearly see the word RECTAL written on the wrapper and I expected her to tell me to flip over. Sadly, she just took it orally and they used that thermometer on me until I was sent home later that day, with the surgery rescheduled.

Given the need for an accurate temperature to decided if the surgery could go on and the fact that she had already gotten a rectal thermometer, she really should have told me to turn over. I guess that she didn’t to spare me the embarrassment.

I do wonder what would have happened if I would have asked “Is that the kind that goes in your butt?” I wonder if I would have spent the next 3 minutes with her hand on my bottom holding the thermometer in place. If I would have gotten a couple of more rectal temps before being sent home.

I remember the one and only time (that I can remember) and I was a small child. Probably 4 or 5 years old.