Tuesday, July 22, 2003
24
Last night in bad I had my first real panic attack regarding my surgery. The recovery is going to be the most painful part, but I'm not worried about that. The slicing and dicing is going to be the most gory part, and I'm not worried about that either. The big thing that worries me is the anesthesia. I've never been put under before, and I just don't get it.
The way I see it, there are 4 primary levels of consciousness:
Awake Asleep Unconscious Dead
Every day, we all slip smoothly and effortlessly between the first two stages. (well, it may be effortless for YOU; it takes a bit of work for me.) But with anesthesia, the doctors want to instantly jump from stage 1 to stage 3. I don't understand how they know how to do this. Everyone is different; if I skip my Mountain Dew today, won't my body chemistry be different than it was when they did my bloodwork, and shouldn't the anesthesia dosage be different? If they don't give you enough, you'll wake up during surgery. That would be bad. If they give you too much, you're dead. That would be worse. The whole thing just seems too much like voodoo for my comfort.
Try spelling "anesthesia" without looking. Even after looking it up I can't do it.
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Last night in bad I had my first real panic attack regarding my surgery. The recovery is going to be the most painful part, but I'm not worried about that. The slicing and dicing is going to be the most gory part, and I'm not worried about that either. The big thing that worries me is the anesthesia. I've never been put under before, and I just don't get it.
The way I see it, there are 4 primary levels of consciousness:
Awake Asleep Unconscious Dead
Every day, we all slip smoothly and effortlessly between the first two stages. (well, it may be effortless for YOU; it takes a bit of work for me.) But with anesthesia, the doctors want to instantly jump from stage 1 to stage 3. I don't understand how they know how to do this. Everyone is different; if I skip my Mountain Dew today, won't my body chemistry be different than it was when they did my bloodwork, and shouldn't the anesthesia dosage be different? If they don't give you enough, you'll wake up during surgery. That would be bad. If they give you too much, you're dead. That would be worse. The whole thing just seems too much like voodoo for my comfort.
Try spelling "anesthesia" without looking. Even after looking it up I can't do it.
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