I pulled up his shirt and untaped his diaper folding the back of it away from his hiney. The front of the diaper was still giving me protection in case we had another accident. I poked the thermometer into the jar of vaseline and got a good glob onto it. Then I spread his cheeks and as gently as I could, slipped the thermometer in. Kevin gasped and I could feel his body tense, but then he relaxed.

I held Kevin steady with one hand on his bottom and rubbed his back with the other. I hummed a little tune I remembered my mom humming when I was sick and she was taking care of me, I’ll have to ask what it’s called next time I talk to her. It all seemed to relax Kevin.

When the time was up, I extracted the thermometer and wiped it clean with the toilet paper. 100.0 it read. “Yep,” I said, “you’ve got a fever.” I closed up the diaper and helped Kevin back into a seated position. I went and washed my hands and tossed the toilet paper into the toilet. Then I called Doc Tom back.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured he said…Look, since I’ve got to swing over by your neighborhood this morning anyway, I’ll drop by and double check.”

“Really? You do house calls?” I asked.

“Not usually, but Terri and Kevin are friends. I’ll see you in about 20 minutes. Oh and let Kevin know I know he’s wearing diapers these days. It’ll make this less awkward for us and less work for you.”

And 15 minutes later, Doc Tom was at the door with a medical bag in hand. This time he was wearing Panama hat, a Hawaiian shirt and bright yellow knickers. We exchanged greetings and I think he could tell I was a bit confused. “I have a tee time in a half an hour” he said by way of explanation for his attire.

“Oh,” I said.

“Well, where’s the patient?” I showed him into the living room where Kevin was lying on the couch.

“Hey, my man!” Doc Tom said.

“Hi.” Kevin said back.

“I hear you’re a little under the weather.”

Kevin nodded.

“I think I know what’s bothering you, but I wanted to have a look to be sure.”

“I’ll be right back.” I said as Doc Tom went over to do his examination.

“No, Carrie. Please stay.” He said, “I prefer to have another adult in the room when I do an examination of a child. It’s…well you know, a good policy. Keep it in mind when you have a practice.”

“Gotcha.” I said and had a seat in an armchair across the way.

The exam took less than 10 minutes and when he was done Tom said, “Yeah, it’s what I thought. I’ll call this prescription in to the pharmacy and tell them to deliver it here. You, my friend, should be fine in a couple of days, maybe even by tomorrow. You probably don’t remember this, but this used to happen a lot when you were little.”

He gave Kevin a pat on the head and said his goodbyes and was off.

“See,” I said, “I told you it would be all right.”

Kevin was smiling now. “Thanks for looking out for me,” he said.

“My pleasure. Want to watch TV for a while or do something else?”

“What do you want to do?” He asked in reply.

“Ooo. I get to pick!,” then I thought for a moment and said, “Well, there are some pictures I was wondering about.”