A Visit to the Pediatrician

Whenever I was told I had to go to my pediatrician I would immediately be worried. The worry was mainly over the embarrassing temperature procedure that was going to happen. You see I was shy when it came to my body and every pediatrician visit involved me pulling down my underpants for a temperature in my heinie. I would try to read the books in the waiting room, but I could never concentrate enough to actually read more than a page or two. I would watch the other kids go back or come out. Then the fear would climb as I heard my named called by the nurse to enter one of the examination rooms. I would slowly walk to the room, usually it was my grandmother following me into the exam room. My parents both worked and my grandmother usually handled the pediatrician trips. Soon as the door shut the command would come to take everything off but your underwear. Then while I stripped the nurse would ask my grandmother why i was there. The nurse would ask the same follow up questions if it was a sick visit.

Has he been vomiting? Does he have diarrhea? Any complaints of stomach pain? Does he have a headache? Finally the dreaded, does he have a fever? The followups were embarrassing because I always thought everyone was listening. When did you last take his temperature would be followed by how did you take his temperature? Now I should point out that I went to this pediatrician until my fifteenth birthday and so it was quite embarrassing by the time I was ten to hear the answer just before we left to come here and it was taken in his rectum. That would then be followed by hearing well we will see if it has changed any since then. Then directed to me would be the command to take my underpants down and lay down on my stomach. I always felt embarrassed because both exam rooms were quite large and had a large picture window. The windows had curtains that were always closed, but I always felt like someone was watching through them and could see me laying on the table with my bare heinie on display. I would also watch while laying there as the nurse would shake down the thermometer and dip it in the jar of Vaseline. Neither the nurse nor my grandmother skimped on the Vaseline and so when I was sick my crack was filled with the stuff. It was a day long reminder of where my temperature had been taken.

The nurse would then come over and pat my heinie and say now I need you to lay still like a big boy. Then she would spread my cheeks and I could feel the cold air on my heinie hole. Next would come the feeling of the thermometer penetrating me and the Vaseline spreading over my heinie hole. Now I was embarrassed at home when my grandmother took my temperature, but the fact that the nurse; who I did not know well, was poking something up there always gave me a feeling of shame. She would finish the insertion and the release my cheeks. I could feel the Vaseline spreading throughout my crack. Then I would lay there for five minutes while the nurse and my grandmother made small talk. I will share more later.