Imagine feeling the searing pain during an operation, while under anesthesia and unable to move a muscle and waking up to the eternal memory to the trauma of being unable to inform the people to stop their procedure. The nightmare for these people must be horrible and I was almost one of those people who woke up during anesthesia.
Our family dentist informed us that I needed to have all four of my back molars removed. These were growing and crowding out my good teeth. I was working my first summer job right out of high school and was eighteen years old when anesthesia was administered again.
I believe this procedure was done on a Sunday morning because the short, hyperactive brunette supervisor from UC Berkley, CA wanted me to come in for work. I recalled telling her I that, although I did mention during the interview that I could work on weekends and didn’t have any ‘religious’ obligations to meet, the dental schedule has been already made.
So off I went to have my molars removed in one of the medical offices across from the Alexian Brother’s Hospital off of McKee Road in San Jose, CA. The doctor was professional and he inserted the needle nicely into my right arm. I drifted off to sleep and didn’t feel any pain whatsoever.
Suddenly, I started opening my eyes but was barely able to move my upper body at bit. I looked left and right and distinctly felt some sort of instrument inside my mouth. I barely remember seeing the Filipina assistant to my left and I clearly saw the white dentist with Asiatic blue eyes to my right.
The dentist appeared to be hurrying to do something to my right arm where the needle originally went in for the anesthesia. I clearly remembered following his action with my half opened eyes and blearily acknowledged the action of injection to my right arm. During this waking state, I felt no pain whatsoever. But I remember looking around.
I am one of the lucky ones who have avoided feeling the pain registering into the gray matter of this big brain of mine. All I remember was opening my eyes inside this room with walls of vertical brown panels after the dental surgery. ‘Kali-Maw’ was sitting to my left and the Filipina assistant was already inside to help me up.
The effects of the anesthesia were amusing because I would not stop babbling nonsense and asking all sorts of stupid questions. My unanswered questions continued as the twosome lead me out to the car to be driven home. I remembered the Filipina to my left arm talking to ‘Kali-Maw’ on my right arm about how the anesthesia affected me. My heightened reaction was a motor mouth then.
And now I have evolved to the worse potty mouth. Tonight, I have been scolded for being very harsh verbally and my uncontrollable ‘expressed opinions’ to any minor details scared ‘Kali-Maw’. I suppose the combination of my bad attitude (especially from my DNA) and my sense of awareness from waking up to some sort of ‘anesthesia’ to my surroundings needs to be further corrected.
What needs to be corrected is how to better monitor the pain threshold based on the electrical pattern of an unconscious brain. The mind is always active while subconscious, too. Since the patient cannot communicate their sensations while under sedation, there must be some current technology to make sure the ill effects to insufficient doses of anesthesia could be avoided. Noone should suffer a lifelong nightmare of constant pain while in the conscious state.
Copyright © 2007 by Fluffy von der Flynn. All rights reserved.
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