In 1975, I was 13 and was down with an upper respiratory infection. I was running a fever and mom did not want me to leave the house even to go to the doctors office in our neighborhood. Back in those days, doctors still made house calls on occasions. My mother explained my symptoms and the doctor came over a short while later and listened to my chest and back with her stethoscope. The doctor conformed that it was indeed and upper respiratory infection and that she would give me a shot."Have him roll over and pull down his pajama bottoms" the doctor told my mother and she got me in position and bared my bottom.
My mother had given the doctor my temperature over the phone , but the doctor said she wanted to take a reading herself. "Should I have him turn over and sit up? " my mother asked, assuming my temperature would be taken orally.
"No, have him stay like that -I'll get a better reading by rectum anyway" she replied and shook down and lubricated her rectal thermometer, she then turned and went to my bed and bent over with it in her right hand. Moments later I felt my buttocks being parted and the cold slick thermometer slide up my anus. My buttocks were then released and the doctor went to her bag and prepared my injection. She rubbed my buttock with an alcohol moistened cotton ball. All the while my rear was clenching the rectal thermometer.
"All right Tommy, just relax, you're going to feel a little "pinch" . I gritted my teeth-to this day I still hate injections. Then I felt her push the needle into my buttock and press the plunger to give the injection. The doctor quickly removed it, put the syringe into her bag and then turn and withdraw the rectal thermometer from my up turned bottom. She noted the reading and told my mother to keep me in bed and that I would start to feel better soon as she wrote a prescription to be filled for me.
Mom then pulled up my underpants and pajama bottoms and covered me up. I protested about the shot and rectal temp and she said it was for my own good.