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.
Proper explanation, indeed - you never get all the way through the countdown before you time travel. Beforehand, though (at least in my too many to count without it sounding like a weird brag experiences), the “last words” moment is before the mask, but after the pre-anesthesia. Depends on the procedure, and probably the person, too.
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.
Neat, that’s legitimately interesting! Maybe you have something unique in your physiology that gives you a different perspective? I’m pushing 6 surgeries under general, and around 5 precedures under IV, probably missing some numbers with my now shoddy memory forming capabilities, but my experiences with the knockout sedation could be described much more similarly to your experience, and a few of the IV sedations weren’t as deep, so I remember a bit more of the “in and out”, but mostly it’s just “Oh, yeah, I feel there’s a change in my coherence-BLACKOUT”, and then next awareness is recovery room beeps.
It’s interesting how different people respond. I remember changing into the tunic/robe, and then nothing. I don’t even remember leaving the pre-op room, just waking up in the post-op hallway in one of about 20 beds.
This is also exactly how I remember my only time under the knife. I remember feeling that cold in my veins and “this is it, I’m passing out any moment now”. Then I don’t remember anything until I was in the recovery section even though I regained conscience in the operating block as expected. I just remember waking up with the oxygen mask covering my mouth and feeling extremely claustrophobic.
The last 2 times I went under (for a complicated tooth extraction and the subsequent implant) they didn’t do the countdown, which surprised me because that was what I remembered most clearly from my lung surgery as a teen. They just asked me if I was comfortable, then said “Good, cause you’re about to get extra comfortable!” and we laughed, then I woke up. Maybe it was a dental surgeon thing? But I’ve also got a really good relationship with the dental techs and the anesthesiologist was a riot.
Hold your breath before the mask goes on then really quickly say “tennineeightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone”
Breath in, and then go “bet you I’m the first to…”
Pass out
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.
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.
Depending on how consciousness actually works, the you before that might have died and you’re an entirely new consciousness with the same brain and memories.
I’ve thought about death and what it means a lot in recent months.
As we go to sleep every night, how do we know the you who wakes up the next morning is still you?
Not my experience, I was put to sleep through IV and I knew when I was falling asleep. I then had a weird dream mixed with reality, and when I woke up all the text was upside down for a minute.
Same, every time I’ve had a general aesthetic the anaesthesiologist has sat down near my arm, asked if I’m ready, and when I say “yup” he says some medical jargon to the anesthetist/resp nurse, then warns me that it’s going to feel cold and taste funny, he connects a bolus syringe to my IV bung and as he’s pushing tells me to count down from ten, and the anesthetist grabs my head gently as the anaesthesiologist moves around towards my head and presumably grabs some other instruments ready to intubate.
My record is 7. But next time I’m going to try counting faster - not sure why but I’d always try to time it to actual seconds.
For GA, I’ve never been given a gas mask while awake, maybe it’s to do with “rapid induction”, I’m not 100% sure what that is, only that every anaesthesiologist I’ve had has said he’s going to “rapidly induce” because my connective tissue disorder indicates the need to. I never really questioned it.
The only time I’ve been given a mask while being told to count was when I was going under twilight sedation for a colonoscopy. as they were administering the IV, they also gave me a mask that was unexpectedly strawberry “flavoured” and I had a panic attack as I was going under because my grandma is allergic to strawberries, I’m not, but in my semi lucid state I forgot I wasn’t and started mumbling about being allergic to air.
(I’ve only ever had male anaesthesiologists, so apppogies for only using male pronouns to describe the doctor)
I had a very stodgy surgeon and I actually got a laugh out of him. He checked in with me pre surgery and as he was leaving said he would see me in the OR and I was like I hope I don’t see you (meaning I hoped the anesthesia worked). No one else got what I meant except for him and he had a genuine chuckle.
Good luck on the surgery OP
True story: The morning before going in for foot surgery, my mom was in a silly mood and wrote “wrong foot” on the other non-surgery-scheduled foot with a marker before putting on her socks.
After the surgery everything was fine, and later when checking up on her the surgeon told her everyone in the operating room got a good laugh out of that “wrong foot” message.
Mom was glad her joke worked out, but later started wondering why they were looking at the wrong foot in the first place and now wonders if her private joke to amuse herself actually saved her from having the wrong foot operated upon.
Probably so they could keep an eye on the toenails on the non-operating foot.
There’s a reason they tell you not to wear nail polish before surgery. The nailbeds are one of the best ways to detect cyanosis caused by low oxygen levels in blood.
I’d imagine a “control foot” is probably preferential, and it’s easier to keep an eye on the other foot during surgery than it is to keep an eye on their fingernails.
Medical staff actually DO sometimes write on the appendage that they are supposed to operate on as one of their checks.
Yeah, in my hospital pre-op, we physically hand a marker to the patient and tell them to mark where the surgery will be.
The patient has to get exposed and positioned, then padded (so there are no pressure injuries, no errant cables or equipment pushing on skin, etc). Also under anesthesia (depending on the type but I’ll assume general/completely asleep) you aren’t moving and your body may get moved or shifted into an unnatural position.
It’s also nice to have controls as mentioned by another reply, but pulse oximetry is great, and can be slapped on any non sterilized area to assess oxygenation.
I had surgery three weeks back. The mood in the OR was good. As they were strapping me to the table for bone surgery on my femur, ( They were going to have to exert force, and I needed to be on my side), I asked them if tbay had all watched the youtube tutorials. Laughs ensued.
