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. 🍑🌡️🧴🧻