Room B13

Early in my Senior year of college at our state university, I applied for a position as a test subject in a medical research project conducted at our medical school. The research was to be conducted at our university's teaching hospital on campus.

After applying, interviewing, a brief physical and some blood work, I was surprised and delight to be selected as a test subject despite the alarming disclosures made during the selection process. At the time, I was a perennially broke student and the position paid a whopping $1,300 per day for four days of participation over a four week period. Additionally, the project was considered relatively safe as medical studies go, particularly compared to something like drug trials.

I rationalized that, "it couldn't really be all that bad." After all, it was a peer reviewed protocol to be carried out at a top university's medical school in the course of medical research. However, when I came right down to it, the fact was that I desperately needed the $5,200 for next semester's tuition, books and supplies.

After hastily signing a long contract full of foreboding language and a lengthy Informed Consent form that I had just barely skimmed, I was scheduled to report for my first day in the study. I was to arrive on the following Friday at five AM. I was given a sheet of printed instructions, told to report to room B13 in the basement of the teaching hospital, on campus, at the appointed time and sent home.

The following Friday, after following all printed instructions to the letter, I arrived at room B13 at about 4:55 AM, filled with apprehension and feeling a little sleep deprived. I entered B13 and was immediately presented with a woman sitting behind a desk in a waiting room.

"Hi I'm Leslie . . ." , I started out, only to be interrupted.

"I know who you are....your Leslie Martin, the only one scheduled to arrive at this time," said the prickly woman. She was about forty, not entirely unattractive and wore a nurse's uniform. Her demeanor wasn't unfriendly; but, it was crisp and very business like.

"Just a moment while I get your papers in order" she said, looking through some documents on her desk. This pause gave me a moment to mull things over and I began to feel just a little anxious again about the disclosures made during the interview process. The nurse's demeanor didn't help matters either. Nonetheless, I quietly took a deep breath and waited nervously.

"Ok now Ms. Martin . . . or should I call you Leslie," she asked as she looked up after finding the appropriate paperwork. "Leslie is fine," I replied.

"Very well then Leslie, follow me, please," she said as she rose and opened a door for me. As it closed behind us, she told me to take a left down a very quiet and rather dimly lit hall way. As I did so, I saw a small room, bathed in light, further down the dark hall way. It appeared to be a small locker room, but it had no door, just an open portal. As we arrived there, I noticed a hook on the wall just inside the entrance to the room. On it was a paper examination gown, a plastic bag with a draw sting and a marker pen hanging from a lanyard.

We stopped at the entrance to this room and the nurse calmly and somewhat coolly said, "Please disrobe and put on the exam gown....you are to put your clothes in this, indicating the draw string bag hanging on the hook. I will be waiting right here." She immediately moved into the hall, just out of the doorway as she spoke, so that she wouldn't actually see me undress; but, anyone walking down the hall could easily have looked in as they passed. I hesitantly took off my shoes and clothes and placed them in the bag. I then quickly donned the skimpy paper gown, noticing right away that it only just reached the top of my thighs and barely covered my back side at all, even when I held the open back closed. I hoped that we wouldn't meet anyone in the hall.

I let the nurse know that I was ready. She stepped into the room and took my bagged clothes and quickly wrote my name and subject number on the bag with the marker pen. She stepped out into the hallway and opened a little door in the opposite wall. She passed my clothes through the little door to someone on the other side and immediately started off down the hall, bidding me to follow her.

"Nurse . . . can you tell me what's going to happen", I asked. "You are to be prepped for today's research", she answered, brusquely and, I thought, a bit ominously.

I inquired further, "yes, well, what does that entail", I asked, as I sped up to keep up with her and struggled futilely to keep the thin paper gown that I was wearing closed in the back.

"I'm not allowed to divulge that information now. You are here to comply with the contract for your participation in our research project. You'll be informed as today's tests proceed and, as you already know, if you decide to leave the project at any point during this or any other day of your participation, you will not be paid for your participation that day and you will be barred from further participation."

We walked briskly down the hall. To my relief, nobody was around, at least as far as I could tell.

We arrived at a door with a sign on it that read "Exam 2", which my escort opened. Just as she turned on the light in the room, I noticed a double door at the end of the hall. The sign above it read "Procedure Theater". Instantly, the idea of what was about to unfold began to sink in. Just then, the nurse turned and noticed that I was looking at the door to the Procedure Theater.

"You'll know soon enough ....now come ON," she said, briskly.

I turned and looked into the room that we were about to enter. It was tiled and to my dismay, had a exam table in the center of the room with the stirrups already extended. There were several stainless steel cabinets with glass doors holding various supplies and instruments built into one wall. I couldn't make out their contents clearly from where I stood. The room also had an area behind the table partitioned off by a half wall. The room was lit by a single, very bright, adjustable overhead light, like those in an operating room, that cast an island of intense white light down on the exam table while only dimly lighting the rest of the room. I was told to have a seat on the examination table.

As I climbed up the small step and sat down between the extended stirrups on the crisp paper covering the examination table, I was immediately aware that, when I sat, my thin paper gown was inadequate to completely cover my pubes. I also was very aware of the fact that the open back of my gown was now gaping open as I sat on the table, bathed in the intense light from above.

The nurse immediately got down to business and proceeded to ask me questions regarding my medical history, my age at onset of menses, my menstrual cycle, my sexual activity, my sexual preferences, birth control, smoking, drug and alcohol use. I found some of these questions embarrassing. I was barely 21 years old at the time, unmarried, from a small rural town, innately shy anyway and had been a virgin until just after I started college, three years before. I was therefore not very comfortable sharing details of my relatively new found sexuality with this brusque stranger.

As I thought about this, assuming that the worse was over for the time being, the nurse abruptly thanked me for the information and informed me that next, I would be "required to produce" a urine specimen. As I began to slide my bottom off of the table, I paused awkwardly to inquire where the rest room was. The nurse curtly replied that the test protocol required a, "mid-stream, observed, clean catch specimen" and that I would have to produce in front of her, either at the foot of the exam table, on the toilet with her present or squatting on the exam table. I was shocked.

She asked me which I'd prefer. I was mortified and, as I mulled over this "choice", the nurse retrieved a stainless steel emesis pan, a specimen jar, a fresh pair of exam gloves and an absorbent paper pad from one of the cabinets. When she returned to the table, she just stood and looked at me for a moment.

Finally she said, "OK, we don't have all day, so since you're indecisive, I'll make the choice for you: jump down here on the floor and stand in front of me." As I complied, the nurse turned and wheeled an exam stool over and sat down in front of me. She placed the pad on the floor between us with the emesis pan in its center and then put the specimen jar and the gloves into it.

Just then, all I seemed to be able to do was stare at the pan. I was literally speechless. The nurse snapped, "Come on, let's go, stand on this pad with you're your feet well apart and straddle the emesis pan, please." As I slowly complied with her orders, she donned the gloves, picked up the specimen cup and removed its cap. It occurred to me why I had been instructed to drink at least six full glasses of water that morning before arriving. This realization also made me suddenly aware that I did, indeed, need to urinate, in fact, pretty urgently.

The nurse then told me to squat over the emesis pan, hold my labia open and urinate into the emesis pan. I couldn't believe that this was happening but, by this point, I knew that compliance was the best policy.

I squatted, reached down and separated my labia using my index and the middle finger of my right hand and tried to "produce", but I couldn't, even despite the now pressing urge to do so. Noticing this, the nurse rose quickly, moved to the sink and started the water running gently and immediately returned to her perch before me. She said in a soothing tone, "just take my hand honey, so you don't loose your balance. That's right, now, close your eyes and just relax for me and listen to the water run".

As I tried to comply, urine started to flow intermittently. However, as I relaxed further, the erratic flow turned in a strong, steady stream. I opened my eyes just in time to see the nurse's gloved hand thrust the specimen jar into the warm yellow stream to collect the specimen and withdraw it.

The nurse then abruptly told me to let go of her hand and finish "urinating". She capped the pre-labeled jar and immediately passed it through a small door to someone in the other room for analysis by the lab. I wondered if they could hear what was going on in the room while I listened to my pee noisily cascading into the metal pan until I was completely relieved.

When I finished, the nurse offered me a tissue to wipe myself and showed me a trash container into which I was to discard the used tissue. While I wiped and disposed of my tissue, she discarded her gloves and the pad and emptied the emesis pan somewhere behind the half wall, but, as I later learned, only after she had measured and noted my "output".

The nurse returned and had me get up on a scale near the entrance to the room. She carefully weighed me and recorded both my weight, 119 pounds (54 Kg) and my height, 5 feet, seven inches (171 cm).

The nurse then said, "Hop up on the table for me, again, Leslie." I warily wondered what was next as I once again, perched myself on the edge of the table. As the nurse had said earlier, I was to find out, "soon enough".

The nurse proceeded to take my blood pressure (a bit high from my novel experience with the "clean catch"), pulse (a bit fast for the same reason) and respirations (rapid and a bit shallow due to my anxiety about what had just happened and what lay in store for the rest of the day). She carefully recorded all of the information in my chart and then looked up at me, fixing my eyes with her own and said, "OK, just recline on the table for me, sccot up to the top and roll over on your stomach. I reluctantly complied and, once I had done so, was told to move my ankles apart."

I watched the nurse out of the corner of my eye, apprehensive about what was about to occur. She wheeled in a stainless steel Mayo tray from behind the half wall and brought it over just to my left, at the head of the exam table. I could clearly see that on the tray there was a rectal thermometer (the type with a round ball on the end), a tube of surgical lubricant, a package labeled "Rectal Occult Blood Test Kit" and a fresh pair of exam gloves.

"Do you have to?", I asked looking into her eyes almost pleadingly. "Yes I have to", she said. "Move your ankles a bit further apart, please, that's it Leslie, now relax", she said. "God this is embarrassing", I sheepishly protested as I closed my eyes.

"It's going to get worse, before it gets better, missy", she said portentously, pulling the bottom of the flimsy exam gown open to expose my buttocks. I'm still not sure, but I could swear to this day that I could actually feel a slight breeze wafting over my exposed back side; however, I had no time to contemplate this, as I soon felt the nurse touch and then spread my buttocks with the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. Her cool, lubricated, right index finger then slowly but inexorably began to burrow into my little hole. I drew in my breath quickly and I let out a muted grunt. Once in to the knuckle, she twisted her finger around, probing and exploring my insides.

"Just relax for me, Honey, . . . it's just my finger", she said as my sphincter clamped down involuntarily on her finger at the sound of her voice. I felt my face blush bright red.

After what seemed to be a very long time, she withdrew her finger. To my horror, I noticed that it was streaked with feces. The nurse picked up a test card from the occult blood test kit and smeared a small amount of fecal matter onto the test card. She then carefully dropped the test card into a specimen jar, screwed down its lid tightly, discarded her soiled glove and again passed the specimen through the little door. As she returned, she replaced her glove with a new one. This made me wonder. It didn't take long to find out.

Without warning, the nurse picked up the thermometer. I braced myself for yet another indignity. Without saying a word, the thermometer was thrust it into my quivering anus. As the nurse held my cheeks and the thermometer, we both waited for my temp to register in silence. The only sounds that I could hear were the quiet flow of air through the building's ventilation system and the sound of my own shallow breathing.

I glanced around the room intently for some clue to what might be about to unfold during the rest of the day, even though most parts of the room were too dimly lit to really make out any details. Eventually, the nurse pulled the instrument from my bottom, read it and recorded the results before using a tissue to wipe the thermometer, which I also noticed was stained by stool. I turned a shade redder as she handed me another tissue and said, "clean yourself up". The nurse discarded her gloves and wheeled the Mayo Tray back behind the half wall while I complied.

She returned and told me, "We're going to have to get you cleaned out . . . it looks as if your quite full. The instructions that you were given stated that you were to eat lightly yesterday and last night. Didn't you follow them?", she asked accusingly. Without waiting for my response, she instructed me to turn over onto my left side with my right leg flexed up against my chest and my left leg bent just slightly. I learned later in the study that this position is called "Simms Lateral", a position with which I was to soon to become all too familiar.

I did as instructed and the nurse left briefly, only to return again with the Mayo Tray. In this position both my bottom and my labia were exposed to view. I watched with my upper body turned and strained to see her behind me. She opened two foil packets and placed them on the tray and squeezed out a small amount of lubricant onto a paper towel laid out on the Mayo table. I rolled my upper body back over, not wanting to watch her. I could hear gloves being put on again and, a moment later, she lifted my right buttock and quickly inserted one and then another suppository deep into my still well lubricated rectum and pushed them up deep inside of me. I couldn't help but groan again, but more at the indignity that I was enduring than due to any real discomfort.

"Now hold those until I tell you that you can use the toilet", said the nurse.

As I lay on the table, I heard water running behind the half wall. I also felt the suppositories start to work. Soon I wanted to use the toilet to get rid of them, but, when I asked for permission, the nurse told me, "I want you to hold them a bit longer. Just breath slowly and try to relax for another four or five minutes." After what seemed like eons of increasing urgency, punctuated by occasional begging, I was finally allowed to get off of the table and rush to relieve myself on the toilet behind the half wall. The nurse watched as I did so, but by this time, I couldn't have cared less. I just wanted to be rid of the contents of my irritated bowls.

The room filled with a feculent odor as I had a good BM. I relaxed and tended to my business. The nurse left me to prepare an enema. While I finished my BM, I watched the nurse hang a large enema bag, filled with milky white fluid on an IV pole and then roll it out into position next to the exam table. I opened my mouth to complain and then thought better of it.

I was being well paid to be there and I needed the money. I resolutely decided right then and there that I had to stoically accept what they were going to do to me.

I wiped as the nurse concluded her preparations. I walked back to the table where the nurse again placed me in Simms Lateral and then summarily parted my buttocks again. She inserted her finger into my rectum, but, this time, she moved it in and out a few times, explaining that she was just "lubricating my back passage" for the next "procedure".

The nurse stepped back and discarded her gloves in a single motion and then wheeled the IV pole right into my field of vision. It was then that I saw the nozzle, up close, for the first time. It was actually a thick rubber tube with a rounded tip with two oval shaped holes on either side. There were two small balloons near it's "business" end about an inch (2.5 cm) apart. There were also three pump bulbs along with a tubing connecter at the other end. I was to learn shortly, through first hand experience, that two of these bulbs inflated the balloons, one of which would lodge just inside my second anal sphincter, while the other dwelled just outside the first sphincter and my anal opening, to form a tight seal and to hold the tube securely in place after inflation. The third bulb was actually a one way pump that would be used to force the enema solution deeper and deeper into my bowls with each squeeze. The nurse noticed me looking at the nozzle and informed me that it was a 42 French rectal retention catheter as she gloved up once more and retrieved the tube of surgical lube from the Mayo Tray.

She then disappeared behind me and I heard the sound of gloves being put on, again. Suddenly, I felt the nozzle pushing against my "back door". The nurse told me to relax, take a deep breath, hold it for a moment and then breath out slowly. As I did, I felt, the nozzle slowly, but firmly, advancing up into me.

"UGGHHH..." I groaned as the first, partially inflated balloon passed my sphincters. "Relax, this isn't the bad part yet", said the nurse. I'm going to inflate the balloon inside of you now". As she pumped the bulb to inflate the first balloon, I felt a feeling of tremendous fullness in my rectum. "OOOH, I said, more in surprise than as a reaction to pain. "Now I'll inflate the second balloon to hold the rectal catheter firmly in place", said the nurse, "this is the potentially bad part for some of our test subjects", she added, ominously. As she inflated the second balloon, the feeling of fullness gave way to a gradually increasing feeling of tightness and fairly intense stretching. I wasn't in any real discomfort and I soon became accustomed to this bizarre, new sensation.