17 People Share Their Wild Experiences Under Anesthesia

15.

“It was the June before I entered high school around 2007, and I was extremely insecure about my ears. Not because of kids at school making fun of me, but because my own family just wouldn’t let up on the comments. So, I had cosmetic surgery to make them a little smaller and essentially ‘pin them back.’ They finished the left ear, and everything was fine. Halfway through the right ear, I started moving trying to roll my entire body (head included) over to the left because I was annoyed at whatever was on my right (the doctor doing the surgery), and I was asking, ‘Mom, just like five more minutes of sleep then I’ll get up for school’ and kept the conversation going, asking if she’d make my toast and stuff — a conversation we had five mornings a week when she would wake me for school.”

“I had an entire conversation with the female nurse who was responding as my mom while the doctor (who apparently never had a patient wake before) was yelling at them to hold me still better. I remember it all, including someone who was by my feet being told to come up by my head and help hold me without touching the left ear or letting it be flat on the table. I woke up in recovery and told them I had the weirdest dream and everything that happened. The nursing student who was in the room was assigned to sit with me in my recovery. She and my mom had blank looks at each other for a few moments then the nurse said, ‘So, you’re aware of waking up and talking to us?’ And my mom laughed and said, ‘Only you would wake up and talk during a surgery. It’s like you don’t talk enough when you’re awake — nope, even being put under won’t do it.’ 

I’ve woken up two other times and have to stress each time I go under that the meds don’t work right on me, so they have to give me relaxers before anything else. When I woke two times after, I didn’t talk but was aware of what was happening and could feel what they were doing but not in a painful manner — just in the pressure sense of what was being touched and some sound.”

—30, Massachusetts