Anesthetized

06.20.2012

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my then upcoming Pilonidal Cyst surgery. Well, I've finally had the surgery and am healing normally. My next doctor visit is this coming Monday where I expect he'll say I'm doing fine and can go back to work. I haven't been back to work since May 24. If I could make the same salary by not going to work I would take that job!

I could go into detail about my surgery, what the surgeon did, and my recovery thus far, and I may do that later. For now, since that's been all my life's been about for the last 3 weeks, I'll just share a fun little story that's a subset of what's happened lately.

Years ago, at least 14 years, I had to get my wisdom teeth pulled. When my friends would go in for the procedure, they would talk about getting knocked out and how far backwards they got to count from to. "I got 7! Well I got to 6!" I wondered how far I would get. The time came for me to sit in the chair and get hooked up to an IV, people were wandering around the room and I was getting relaxed, wondering how far back I would manage to count. I'm a big guy, so they would probably have to give me more drugs to knock me out. I'm also a bit of a lightweight when it comes to drugs, since I've never taken anything stronger than Sudafed and don't drink. I got comfortable, blinked, and there was nobody in the room.

It was quiet, how'd it get so quiet? I looked around and saw nobody else. I hesitantly ran my tongue along my inner cheek. Cotton. Dammit! Everything was finished and I hadn't even gotten to start at 10!

14 years later I'm wondering the same thing again. I'm at least 100 lbs heavier and this is going to be a more invasive surgery, so they're going to really knock me out. The anesthesiologist comes into pre-op and asks me a couple of questions (which lead to him deciding that I'll need a breathing tube during surgery as a safety measure, but that's another story). After about 30 minutes I'm wheeled into the OR.

In the OR, the anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist are talking over some combination of what drug to give me and the anesthetist putting in the breathing tube. There's a mask laying on my face, but only because they needed a place to put it. I'm hooked up to something where I can hear my heartbeat beeping, and I'm definitely alive. Finally it's time to get to business, and the anesthetist holds the mask down with what felt like all 100 lbs of her weight.

With the mask on, the anesthesiologist begins yelling at me. "Ok, breath in! Now, breath out! In!" This is what I was thinking (as best as I can remember 3 weeks later):

• Inhale #1: Is this just oxygen? Why is he yelling at me?
• Exhale #1: If I breathe as fast as he wants I'm going to hyperventilate.
• Inhale #2: Ok, that's different. I guess they're pumping in the drugs now. God she's holding this thing tight.
• Exhale #2: Good lord this is stuffy. Feels like I can barely breathe. I wanted to lift my hand to take the mask off, and I'm hoping I stopped myself before they had to. No, wait, it's supposed to be like that.
• Inhale #3: Yep, those drugs are working. I'm going to be out in no time.

And that was all I remembered before waking up in the recovery room. I guess I can claim that I counted back to 7?

The counter to being such a pushover to anesthesia is that both times (wisdom teeth and cyst) when I woke up I'm pretty alert. Not groggy, I know what's going on and where I am. When Gina met me going into my hospital room she said she was amazed and how well I looked (this is also a counter for how bad she looked when she was last in the hospital). I tried to chalk it up to being a morning person as far as once I wake up, I'm awake.

I guess being anesthetized once every 14 years isn't too bad?

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