I've only been anesthetized twice; once that I can remember (the first time, I was too young). It was a couple of years ago, and my doctor wanted to perform an invasive test on me, so I would have to be put to sleep otherwise it would have been to painful for me. So that's what they did, and what I experienced that day showed me why being an anaesthesiologist would be an awful job exactly fifty percent of the time.
First, I went in to be put to sleep. The last thing I remember from that was the distinct sensation that I was suffocating, and trying to scream and cry for help. It was dumb, in retrospect, but I thought I was going to die. Unless my imagination is just rogue and most people don't feel the same way (which, come to think of it, is entirely possible), having to make people think you were gassing them to death every day would make this possibly the least fun ever. In reality, you're just gassing the person to unconsciousness, but I imagine it would be tough to escape the guilt of seeing people panic and struggle.
What redeems this career path, though, is what happens when the anaesthesia starts to wear off. The first thing I remember was trying to ask the nurse to trade email addresses so we could "keep in touch". Of course, my speech was so slurred that it's unlikely she understood me at all, but I distinctly remember trying to recite my email address for her several times. Once the anaesthesia wore off completely, first I realised how insane I must have sounded, then I realised that the nurse (if she understood me) has probably heard much, much crazier sounding things (after all, all of her patients are drugged). Which is how I arrived at the conclusion that maybe anaesthesiology wouldn't be so bad, after all. You'd have something to laugh at, at least. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment