Oh well, I think I could write a book of all the abdominal exams I got...?!
Especially in my teenaged time I had them so often because I had so often abdominal problems by nausea, pain, vomiting and fallings, I was also much too skinny and underweight. So my mom took me so often to our paediatrician for full body and very intense abdominal exams, but I also came into the Childrens clinic few times for longer time because I had a kind of colitis, but I also got two abdominal surgeries there: appendectomy when I was 15 and laparotomy (diverticle and navel hernia) when I was 16.
When I was in the clinic at age 15, I got examined by a gastroenterologist (specialist for abdominal diseases), too, who I did not like at all and who wanted to see me for regular complete full body and very intense abdominal checkups in the clinic three to four tines a year then! I hated these appointments at all, because it was always nearly a whole day at the childrens clinic with so many exams! I felt always so nervous and bad before that, I was totally afraid that these gastro-doctor would let me stay again in the clinic then (what happened then when I was 16), because I always felt so nausea and bad in my stomach during all the exams. This doctor was always so uncontent about me and talked to my mom that he wanted me staying in the clinic regularly for several days because of my sick abdomen, underweight and generally bad condition. My biggest fear was that I get again so nausea during these exams by him that I had to vomit (because that already happened to me few times before by the paediatrician and by a public health doctor!)!!
The exams by the gastro-doctor at the clinic were the longest and most thorough and intense abdominal exams I remember. After the measuring (including height, circumferences of breast, abdomen and hips) and weighting (completely naked) procedures done by a nurse, this doctor also started the exam by inspecting me while I had to stand naked infront of him. He was always complained about my clear underweight and that I was much too skinny, that I generally looked so pale and sick, that I also have so extremely many and conspicuous moles (dysplastic nevi syndrome!), which he also inspected and touched on my abdomen, too, he also pressed with one hand into my abdomen on several places then while he hold me with his other hand on my back, and everytime he was totally dissatisfied because of my completely protruding gnarly (outie) bellybutton (navel hernia!). So during I was standing in front of him he always inspected my whole abdomen, also the surgical scars (first the appendectomy and later the laparotomy scar), but always very closely and accurately on my outie navel, too, and poked with one finger onto my gnarly and completely protruding navel several times while he ordered me to rise my arms above my head to stand completely stretched in front of him, also then during he ordered me to cough several times and also when he ordered me to blow my stomach completely up and down. I already felt so bad and nausea then, still before I was ordered to lay down onto the exam table, when the gastro-doctor started with the normal routine general exam by looking in the mouth, palpating lymph nodes everywhere, auscultating my heart and lungs before he came back to my abdomen then.
Mostly he said that he started now the long abdominal exam - and it was also the longest part of the whole exam at all (!) - but he also ordered me to tell him immediatelly about pain, nausea and when I have to vomit! I felt so ashamed and nervous then and had such a bad, weak and queasy feeling in my stomach when he began to inspect my sunken and skinny abdomen then while I was lying on the table. I also felt so embarrassed seeing his eyes moving all around my abdomen for one or two minutes and when they were fixed again on my gnarly outie bellybutton. After a while he ordered me to breathe in my stomach again in and out several times to blow it up and down again while he watched again on my abdomen and mainly on my completely protruding navel. Mostly I felt like I already could vomit at once still now, but I still hold it. The nurse stand beside the exam table with a bowl for that case and observed the whole exam, too. That made me more and more nervous and was so embarrassing for me.
After all that inspection and eyeing on my abdomen, moles and navel, he took his stethoscope again and began to auscultate everywhere on my abdomen. That took several minutes and much too long for me, too, it was like he auscultated always every centimetre or millimetre of my abdomen again and again from my ribs to my genital area and from the right to the left flanks, few times he put that cool stethoscope directly onto my gnarly protruding navel, what was still more uncomfortable. When he put the stethoscope away, he started percussing and knocking with his fingers also everywhere on my abdomen, what I felt like a hammering with his fingers on it. It did not really hurt, but it was uncomfortable, too, because he did that a longer time (few minutes) and absolutely everywhere on my stomach, too.
After that he always started with the absolutely longest part of the whole exam and what I hated at all: he began the abdominal palpation. It took nearly five to ten minutes and after a while it was for me like I was lying on a rack, because I already felt so nausea at the beginning and what got worse how longer he palpated, I was so afraid of vomiting, and he asked me again and again about that and told me strictly to tell that immediately, because he always knew and saw that I was so nausea. First he began to press lightly everywhere on my abdomen with one hand, but how longer he palpated, he pressed and poked deeper and deeper everywhere. I felt like he pressed at many spots again and again, it was often hard not to vomit, it was often like a fight against myself, especially when he was pressing deeply again and again under my both costal arches left and right and on my upper abdomen. I thought like that would be the ultimate test if I have to vomit! The gastro-doc also talked to my mom during the long palpation and asked her about nausea, vomiting, fallings, abdominal pain and about other exams by other doctors, how they examined me, what they said and so on, what was absolutely embarrassing for me! I was often so relieved when I could hold it and did not vomit during all that time of eternal pressing and poking onto my stomach by that doctor, so I sometimes gave a kind of soft sighe when he stopped with that so long abdominal palpation.
But he then explained seriously that my abdominal exam would still not be finished at all and that he now has to examine my completely protruding navel very intensely and thoroughly, too, because I had a prominent outie bellybutton and a navel hernia, too! It was the part of the whole abdominal exam what I hated most, because it took nearly as long as the whole abdominal exam before and hurt badly sometimes! And I hated my navel at all and was so ashamed about it because it was such an ugly and weird looking and far protruding knot like a cancerous ulcer would protruding out of my stomach! So, I was already used to those navel exam by other doctors (mainly by the paediatrician), too, but by that gastro-doctor I always felt like he paid special attention to the examination of my weird outie bellybutton. I hated that these doctor and the nurses there in the clinic already knew me as "the skinny boy with the sick abdomen" and "with the completely prodruding navel/navel hernia". So the gastro-doc started the navel exam by inspecting it very closely, while he also spread the skin around it and fingered on it, often he also used a kind of metal stick or some tweezers for that, what was also uncomfortable. Then he started fingering and palpating gently on my outie navel, pressed my outsticking navel knot in all directions, tried to turn and squeezed it between his fingers many times and after a while he suddenly tried to press it as far in as possible by giving a very hard poke on my navel and hold it pressed inside for some seconds. He did not say a word before, so it was surprising and so uncomfortable for me! He repeated that several times again so my navel hurt more and more and I "ouched" sometimes. And - like a stupid kid that I was at that time - my silly hope was, that my navel would stay inside when the doctor took his finger away, but that never happened, it plopped always completely out at once then about I was so dissappointed. The absolutely worst part for me followed then, because the doctor now tried the opposite then, too: he put again my protruding navel between his two fingers and tried to pull it as far out as possible! That was always so painful and I ouched nearly everytime, because he repeated that several times, too. I was really shocked when I saw my navel so far out between his fingers! After that, I mostly felt such a burning and pulling pain on my outie navel for the next one to two days (I often could not stand or sit upright without that pain!) and I felt so totally nausea after that, so I did not eat anything for the rest of the day! That was the main reason why I did not liked that doctor at all! But he was always totally uncontent and complained about my completely protruding outie bellybutton and talked to my mom about a surgery of my navel hernia at every appointment, what happened then during the laparotomy when I was 16, after I vomited during the exam by the gastro-doc, when he thought I could have abdominal cancer, too, what was not found fortunately.
At the end of the exams, the gastro-doc normally did several reflex tests on my abdomen, followed by genital and a rectal palpation. The laboratory exams would be done by a nurse, then the gastro-doc always did a long abdominal ultrasound. Sometimes, he also ordered abdominal x-rays, too, so that I was so enervated and tired when all was done and when my mom could take me back home in the late afternoon then. The exception was when I was 16 and the gastro-doc ordered that I had to stay in the clinic because I felt so bad in my abdomen and vomited during the exam. I was so dissappointed and sad that I cried, but that is another long chapter...