Rude Nudity

As a lead in to this story, I'd like to announce that I don't have sinus cancer.
This became a concern of mine shortly after I quit smoking, last year in November. Over the following months I started to develop increasingly painful headaches around my nose, my eyes, etc. My ears began to tear up more often, to be more sensitive to cold winds, smoke, and the like. From time to time when I blew my nose there was even a little blood. For a long while I blew this off as simply a side effect of the smoking, that my nasal passages had been dried out by 5 years of smoking a pack a day, and now without the cigarettes my body was finally starting to react.
Well, it just kept getting worse, until feeling unhealthy became kind of my normal day to day mood. A day without a headache was a good day. I didn't complain very often because, well, I don't like to complain unless it's about something silly.
I finally decided to look up my symptoms using that wonderful tool for budding hypochondriacs, the ole interweb.
First possibility I get a response for is sinus cancer. I'm freaked, but I don't want to freak anyone else out, so I downplay it. I tell a few key people who may need to know. D, of course, and my manager at work. I think about going to the doctor, but, well, I'm terrified it's sinus cancer and that I'll go, get tests, and find out I've got six months to live. That would suck.
Finally I decide that since I'm going to be applying for my passport, and my doctor is the perfect guarantor because he literally pried my whiny, crying, annoying self from my mother's body (I don't think I wanted to leave; I've been cold ever since) I should set up an appointment to get my sinuses checked AND get my guarantor section of the passport application filled out. So I had the appointment last Friday.
It was a fairly pleasant trip to the doctor's office. A bit rainy, and my pants got wet, but otherwise I was okay. I got there, took my shoes off outside the office, and sat down to wait. My appintment time came and went, but that's to be expected because doctors are never on time, and I passed the time talking to a lovely older couple about my fears of sinus cancer, and about "kids these days" (see previous post about how old I am).
Eventually the doctor's executive assistant lets me in, and I sit in one of the doctor's exam rooms, and I realize something.
For my entire life, or at least the majority of it, my mother took me to the doctor. I went, got into the room, and she told me to strip to my undies and sit on the paper. That was process. Without fail, I had to get naked.
And all of a sudden I realize that as a 25 year old, I don't know the protocol. Do I need to get naked for the doctor to check my sinuses? Maybe he'll want to check my breathing, make sure that if it's an infection it hasn't spread to my lungs. Should I just take off my shirt? Will a sinus infection affect my reflexes, and thusly will he need me to take off my pants so he can tap my knee with that tiny hammer of his? I have absolutely no idea. None. I start to freak out about what clothes to divest myself of and totally forget why I'm there.
And before I can decide, the doctor comes in and asks me how I'm doing, and my first impulse is to shout "I don't know when to take off my pants!". But luckily I have a fairly good mental blocking mechanism (about 2 out of 3 times it keeps a comment like that from coming out) and I manage to blurt out that I'm worried I have sinus cancer.
He tells me to get on the paper. FANTASTIC! Impulses engage and I strip to my undies and hop on the paper, like a good little five year old.
The doctor takes his little flashlight doohicky and shines it in each nostril, for two seconds.
"Low key infection. Probably environmental."
I discuss treatment options with him, we come to a decision and he prescribes me some nasal spray.
I'm still, at this point, practically naked, so I pause to awkwardly get back into my pants.
"Yeah, you probably only need to take those off for a physical." He tells me, with a very gentle criticism in his voice. Thanks. Great. Good to know. Can you put up a sign next time, doctor?
Now, I'm really comfortable around my doctor, because, like I said, he BIRTHED me (he was quite mistaken when he said I'd be a football player, but that's a story for another time) but I leave his office with the greatest feeling of shame I've had in a long time. I, a relatively healthy 25 yr old male, was unable to grasp the etiquette behind a doctor's appointment.
I don't know now that when it is time for my physical that I am going to be able to muster the courage to drop trou.
I think that when that time arrives, I'll just tell my doctor to go in through the fly.