Last time, I used: “Anybody need anything while I’m out?” and that went over well. May not make it through this surgery on Friday, so I turn to Lemmy for top-notch suggestions for my potential last words!
It’s pretty clear to me many people here have never either had general anesthesia or talked to anyone who had, you can’t really time funny one-liners right before you pass out.
Here’s how it works:
They’ll put a mask with a rubber tube in your mouth for oxygen, and tell you to relax and count back from 10, so you start counting impatiently(it’s boring, and there is nothing else to do), wondering when the surgery is going to start.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Now the anesthesiologist is in front of you, checking on you to see if you’re OK. “But I haven’t finish counting down yet, when is the surgery going to start?” You ask them.
“It’s already over”, they explain.
Then you realize you are in a completely different room, the tube is no longer in your mouth, but you feel so weak you can hardly move, and the stitches/staples around your new surgery wound is starting to itch.
It’s like a segment of your life was cut out and erased into nothingness.
I’ve had nearly a dozen surgeries, and none of them have gone like that.
Sometimes I have a mask over my face, but mostly I don’t, then they give me a little prick in my arm. I feel cold travel up my arm, whilst the person counts down from 10. When the cold gets to my shoulder, which is usually when the countdown is at about 7 or so, I go under, like someone turned off a light, but just slow enough that I can just remember an awareness of being about to go under. There’s no weakness, no feeling of being unable to move, just cold travelling up my arm, and then lights out.
Then, I wake up, with an awareness that time has passed, though not an awareness of how long it has been.
I had no mask for my surgery. Maybe because it was removing wisdom teeth.
My surgery was then starting liquid in my arm. I’m wheeled to the surgery room where three nurses are setting things up.
They see I’m nervous. “Don’t worry! Doctor X is very good,” she pauses. “We do call him the velociraptor though.”
“Why?”
“Because he has short arms!”
“That’s mean!” I say.
They laugh. “You won’t remember, it’s fine.”
“I’ll remember!” I try and say, but my mouth is full of gauze and I’m in a very different room.
No sense of passage of time. In surgery, then in recovery. Hated that.
But you did remember tho
I could feel that I was going out as I counted. It felt as if I slowly lifted an inch above the operating table and rested on a fluffy white cloud. I could feel them inserting catheter and needles but it didn’t hurt even a bit, if anything it tickled. Last sight was the grumpy face of this fridge-sized bald anesthesiologist.
Woke up a second later in Intensive Care unit, surprisingly well rested.
By the way, there was no tube in my mouth. They just put a mask on and it smelled sweet.
“Who’s making toast?”
The one and only time I was put under I said “you know what you’re doing, eh?” And he just put me out. I didn’t mean to say that, I was just nervous. I did see a nurse laugh though so that’s nice.
“Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast”
This. This is the one.
(Long live Ace Rimmer.)
“I’m aware that consciousness still exists under general anesthesia, but the brain is no longer capable of forming memories, so have fun stabbing me with knives, I’m actually going to feel it!”
But hang on, there’s an interesting topic. Is consciousness the current processing, or is it the memory (and perhaps something additional)? Since not all nerve signals arrive in the brain at the same time, consciousness provably isn’t immediate. Perhaps it’s the recent memory of what just happened?
“don’t touch my junk” - “not bad for a first date” - “any message for the other side?” - “I’ll let you know what the old man says” - “delete my browser history” - “I forgot the stove on”
I’m getting SRS next year. Idk if the first one would or wouldn’t work, the second one could be spicy lol
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Good luck on the surgery OP
