Remembering My First Time

A tale of embarrassment, fainting, and the exchange of money.

I sat wearing nothing but my boxer-shorts and a heavy coat of anxiety. This date had been circled on my calendar for awhile and the anticipation was palpable. The morning of, I had called my dad to ease my nerves and quiet my fears. “It will all be fine.” While I knew everything would go smoothly, the fear of the unknown hung pretty heavily.

After all, I had never been to the dermatologist before.

I’ve always had an irrational fear of having something wrong internally. It probably stems from having control issues and things like cancer or other disease being well out of my control. When I was referred to a “specialist” for “abnormal” conditions on my skin, well, it wasn’t exactly the news I was hoping for. So I sat there, wearing almost nothing, waiting for the doctor to arrive.

Finally the door opened and in walked, well, a whole team of people. This wasn’t what was expected—this was far worse. Mentally I had prepared to stand in almost all of my glory for one doctor. One. But instead there was a dermatologist and two nurses. And a student because, why not? This was not what I had bargained for.

They had me stand up in the middle of the room, arms out, legs apart. Holding onto the few strands of dignity that remained, I stood there trying to avoid all eye contact as the doctor inspected every inch of my body while the nurses took notes and the student did what students do—not much.

“Nice shorts, are those water guns?”

Taking the time to inspect my clothing hadn’t even crossed my mind in preparation for this appointment, so while getting dressed I had just grabbed the next pair of boxers in the drawer. Instead of a respectable plaid or a stately striped, I landed upon a wild array of water guns firing in all directions. The word embarrassing doesn’t do justice to what was going through my head as I mumbled a polite “thank you” and watched the student snicker while the nurses continued to document every detail.

The doctor used a purple pen to mark my body as he made his rounds. “This goes; check this; this one too,” he remarked passively as…