Clueless Brother In Law

My brother in law Steve ended up with a terrible summer cold (probably flu actually) a couple weeks ago. He's still not over it completely, but were talking ear infections, chest and sinus congestion, throwing up, you name it. My sister Amber, who's married to him, is a nurse at the same hospital my wife is. She was able to take her one and only remaining vacation week off work to look after Steve while he was sick. Steve was brought up sort of weird for a late 70s-early 80s kid. A great guy, but with absolutely no common sense. When he first got sick, for about 4 days he was puking his guts out almost every hour. He couldn't keep nothing down, and he had a fever. Amber knew she couldn't take his temperature orally because of the vomiting, and both his ears were full of infection, so she couldn't use the ear thermometer either. She doesn't like Exergen thermometers because of the trouble they had at the hospital with accuracy. So that left only one reliable route to safely, quickly, and accurately measure Steve's temperature......right up his butt with a trusty rectal thermometer. And Amber wasn't hesitant to use it either. It's to my understanding from listening to Steve after the fact, that was the first time Amber had ever inserted anything up his rectum, and the first time he'd ever had his temperature taken that way in his whole life. He was so upset she did that to him, and couldn't understand why she couldn't do another way. I finally told him...."Dude, she couldn't have you projectile vomiting with a thermometer in your mouth. Both of your ears are infected, so she can't use the kid's ear thermometer. Why are you so upset? She's only seen your naked ass 3,000 times. She did it for you in the privacy of your home, not in front of a bunch of strangers." Steve thought for a few seconds, then said "damn, I guess you are right." I just shook my head and said "she's just looking out for you because she loves you, man." Right before I left to go home, Amber asked me if Steve was still bitching about the rectal thermometer. I told her I thought he was okay with it now. Amber said "we'll he better be, because if he starts throwing up again I'll have to keep on taking it rectally." I nodded yes because Sis and I both grew up with rectal temperatures and understand why it's important.

That was a very interested story.

He's lucky to have a caring wife. Kind of unusual for someone his age to be unaware of rectal temps.