What's an amusing thing to say before going under general anesthesia?
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!
“If I don’t survive, tell everyone I used GNU+Linux, btw.”
But realistically, I’d probably be repeating this to myself: “Do not talk right after you wake up! Do not talk right after you wake up! Check the time, wait at least 2 hours. Do not trust yourself right after you wake up!” in hope that I’d remember to do so as to not accidentally disclose private information while still being high.
So you want people to know you use GNU+Linux, and at the same time believe you have important “private information” you’re likely to disclose while recovering from a general anaesthetic?
Propofol is a hell of a drug. It’s impossible to not say something since your prefrontal cortex is basically still off.
My wife is an RN for the place I had a procedure done and I came out of it asking the anesthesiologist how much she made and telling her my wife was thinking of becoming a nurse anesthetist. The staff thought it was hilarious of course.
Then I’m glad I know my entire team, going in, and they’re all remarkably empathetic to their terrified, high-risk patient! Chances are, any final words through twilight sleep will be a last sentiment to my spouse, in case I don’t make it through. After my tight-five, of course, using the IV pole as a mic.
This was the nurse assigned to that specific shift and had nothing to do with the team that was doing the operation. I think her job was only to do intake and get you set up in a bed/etc. When asked what I was there for, I smiled and said “a lobotomy”. To look at her face, I had just insulted her grandmother’s apple pie.
Thanks for that, I hadn’t thought of it in those terms. Shockingly, being given permission somehow helped? I’ll have to remember that the next time I see someone in distress.
I could easily spew up the angry contents of the rabbit holes that are lobotomies, and their horror, but yeah, I also agree that that’s a weird reaction. I chuckled. I may have to reserve your comment for my next intake at the neurologist, depending on the vibe in the room (but also not, cause those folks professionally monitor how well my brain is functioning lol)
How do you get to know the entire team? It’s hard for me to imagine as the ones you interact with are the surgeons and anesthesiologist as they will talk to you in the ward at some point in time when making their round. But the surgery nurses only stay at surgery theatres or operating rooms and don’t do any round at wards. Patients won’t likely know them.
People want to a feel good story I guess. My question doesn’t aligned with that.
Not that I know each of them as buddies, but at least by face and bedside manner
By the time patients arrive at the operating room, all they see are people in mask. Patients can somehow recognize their doctors through their voices and characters. The nurses - there are no points of reference to recognize them. If these nurses happen to walk in front of the patient outside of the operation room, it will be with almost certainty the patients won’t recognize them.
When OP explain they know them by their bedsite manners, how could that be possible? Which hospital has surgery nurses who happen to function as ward nurses (bedsite)? Or, which hospital has the convenience to allow their surgery nurses to meet their patients at wards, which is not their normal place of work. Not only that it’s not normal for surgery nurses to do that, it’s abnormal.
I try to imagine the SOP of the hospital where the surgery nurses were able to show themselves to OP, damn, I still can’t. I am really out of loop.
I’ll get downvoted again for this. I’ll take it with pride.
It does seem that in this case the person was receiving extensive specialized care and had a team formed specifically to attend to their needs. It wasn’t just going in for your regular surgery, in which case your version is more likely.
Last time I had to be knocked out for surgery, I remember feeling myself fading out, and just before everything went out I felt the nurses and technicians getting me uncovered, when one of them exclaimed “Wow! Look at all that red hair!”
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 many surgeries and most were exactly like this. One time, though, I remember counting down too 4 and then saying, “My ears are ringing.” The anesthesiologist said, “Is this better?” I said, “Yes,” and then woke up.
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.
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.
While sleeping brain activity retains a natural patern and flow, no point in worrying about that since sleep is absolutely a necessity (and I love it). Anesthesia disrupts this brain activity and interrupts your mental existence.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Same case here with wisdom tooth removal but I do vaguely remember my entire body becoming numb before it stopped being numb instantly and the surgery was over
That’s not how it worked for me either of the two times. I don’t have any memories of going out the first time and I think I kinda woke up kinda normally both times.
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.
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.
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.
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