The Moral of the Story Is, Don't Give Me Anesthesia

Well, that's it. You can all go home now.

Oh, right. The story. The actual story of why you should never give me anesthesia.

The summer before my senior year of high school is what I like to call "the summer of surgeries" in retrospect, because I had two of them within the span of about a month. Both of them were outpatient surgeries. Both of them had pretty intensive recovery processes and by intensive, I mean "lying on the couch because I couldn't do anything else". They weren't huge surgeries, but considering that I'd never actually been under the knife for anything at that point in my life, they were pretty considerable where I was concerned.

The first one happened pretty close to when school first got out, and it was the removal of my wisdom teeth. This was before the whole "record yourself after having a dental surgery so you can catch all the stupid things you say and have them follow you around for the rest of your life" trend, so don't get too excited. There's no audiovisual internet proof of anything I'm about to tell you, as much as I kind of wish there was.

As per directions, I did not eat or drink anything the night before the surgery, and I showed up to the dental surgeon's office with my parents (only child=very protective parents and also wisdom teeth surgery=you probably shouldn't drive yourself anywhere). I was eventually called in to a room with a dental chair, where the nurse placed a mask over my nose and mouth to administer whatever substance was going to knock me out so they could rip several teeth off of my jawbone. It was laughing gas.

I'd had a little laughing gas once before, during one of the one or two cavity procedures I'd had in my life to that point, so when she told me what it was as she clipped a pulse monitor onto my finger, I just shrugged. But then--and I kid you not--I actually started laughing. I had no idea that people actually did that--I thought it was an urban legend, like Bigfoot. There I lay, though, giggling with absolute abandon at nothing whatsoever. And so, of course, my mom--who was in the room with me at that point, started laughing, and then my dad, sensing an easy target, popped his head in and told some terrible dad jokes that I laughed at. I would have laughed at very nearly anything at that point, and underneath the laughter that felt more compulsive and unstoppable than anything else, I knew that the reaction I was having wasn't the reaction that was supposed to be happening. This was confirmed by the nurse giving me a concerned look and saying, "I think I'd better lower your dose a little bit" (my anorexia was on the temporary wane at that point in my life, but I was still a lightweight). Almost immediately afterwards, I stopped laughing and started feeling very sleepy and stupid. The last thing I remember clearly was the dentist coming in and saying drily, "Well, it sounds like someone was having a good time in here." And I remember my vague response of something about how the nurse had given me too high a dose, but I don't think he was listening. Or I wasn't actually coherent. It's entirely possible it was the latter.

The surgery itself was fine. Two of my teeth were impacted so they had to be dug out, which always kind of gives me that "ewwwww" shiver. I'm not sure how long I was out for, and I don't exactly remember waking up, because apparently as soon as I showed signs of consciousness they got me out of there. I was definitely still coming out of the drug as my parents placed me in the front seat of the car, because I don't remember most of what happened next. My parents swear this is all true, and they're generally not given to lying about things that I've done, so I trust them. Even though they CANNOT tell this story without laughing hysterically at me. Not with me. At me.

The scene: A small four-door family vehicle. The girl in question is sitting in the front passenger seat, her father is driving, and her mother is in the back passenger seat. The girl's head is lolling around like a loosely-wound bobble-head until her mom reaches up to hold it steady, and has to hold it steady for the remainder of the drive. The girl makes strange, stupid facial expressions that resemble smiles, and it's pretty clear that whatever drug she's on is still pretty laced through her system (seriously, it's a damn good thing I never feel the urge to do drugs. Based on my reaction to clinically prescribed drugs alone, I would be completely useless if I ever did get high). When suddenly, the girl speaks. Well, speaks as best as she can with a numb mouth, wads of cotton shoved down along her cheeks, and enough laughing gas in her system to probably mildly incapacitate an elephant. Or maybe just give the elephant a buzz.

Probably the elephant wouldn't even notice, so just forget that metaphor.

Me: Hemhent!

The girl's parents look at each other, bemused.

Mom: What, Hilary?
Me: Hmhent!
Dad: What?
Me: Hemehent!

Another shared look between the parents.

Me (insistently): Hmehent!
Mom: Oh, I think she means concrete!

For those of you who aren't local, Nielsen's frozen custard, also known as "concrete," is sort of like an ice cream shake if a single ice cream shake made you gain five pounds right after eating it. Frozen custard isn't called "concrete" for nothing, and I had had it maybe once or twice in my entire life before the day I got my wisdom teeth out. I can only assume that in my drugged brain, the logic went something like this:

-we are by the dentist's office
-custard is also by the dentist's office
-I just got my wisdom teeth out
-ice cream is good for people with dental surgery because cold helps pain
-CEMENT

Except probably less well formed than that. It probably looked more like this:

-dentist
-ice cream
-teeth=hurt
-cold
-yes good idea
-CEMENT

Except throw some giant abstract squiggles and weird colors all around the words. That's what it was like.

The girl's parents, now that they have deciphered her emphatic groaning, are kind and decide to go and get her the concrete that she has asked for on the way home. They go through the drive-up and order a chocolate concrete, which the girl immediately tries to eat. Tries, fails, because her mouth is so numb that she ends up with more ice cream dribbling down her front than actually in her mouth.

Mom: Hilary, how about you wait until you get home to eat that?
Me: *groans assent*

Because even when she is drugged, she's smart enough to know that trying to eat this will not end well.

Getting home and lying on the couch I actually do remember, and I don't remember much other than my mother waking me up to change the ice packs on my extremely swollen face and give me some sort of painkiller that put me out faster than you could say jackrabbit. I spent the next few days eating broth and watching Poirot mysteries, because, I'm telling you, I'm an anglophile through and through.

As soon as I was recovered enough to get up and actually walk around and live, I had to go in for a second surgery. This one was for something that wasn't a bunion but looked like one, on my right foot. It was just a weird little bump that had lately been giving me more pain when I was doing ballet (yes, I did that too) so I went to a podiatrist and he. . .wasn't exactly sure what it was even after x-rays, but he was pretty sure they could take it off.

So, round two. I was brought in to a room, made to pee in a cup, mark my foot for surgery (I had to write "yes" on it in big letters), was hooked up to a monitor.

The first thing I remember about that was the overly cheerful nurse who walked in to tell me that the urine test had definitely proved I was NOT pregnant. Which, of course I wasn't. I was the most virginal of all virgins at that point in my life. I hadn't been kissed once, or even stage kissed. But she walked in and was like,

"Congratulations, you're DEFINITELY NOT PREGNANT. Your parents should be proud of you!"

To this day I'm still trying to decipher the meaning of that statement. Was she trying to lighten the mood, make me laugh before the surgery? Was she actually serious, and I actually seemed like the sort of teenager who should be pregnant? I was still a few years away from breaking out of my awkward phase, so I'm pretty sure she wasn't trying to tell me I was ravishingly beautiful and I was lucky not to have been impregnated by one of my many adoring male admirers, because at that point in my life it would have been news to me if I had one adoring male admirer. Not to mention the fact that at that age, I was more terrified by the thought of sexual intercourse (mostly just because it sounded so damn gross) than I was by driving or spiders. I wouldn't have had sex with anyone even if I thought I was in love with them.

And anyway, how can you even tell if a teenager is that sort of teenager, because I'm pretty sure teen pregnancy doesn't just happen to a certain type of girl. So whatever, nurse lady. I certainly hope you don't walk into rooms that way often.

Then the anesthetist (wow, spelled that right on the first try, props to me) came in and administered the stuff to me, and I can vaguely remember telling him about what I was going to be doing in school before I completely went out.

Again, the surgery went completely normally and the bump on my toe was removed. It was some sort of calcification and was not made of solid bone as I had hoped, so I didn't get to keep it. Thankfully, though, at this facility they gave their patients enough time to wake up, so the bleary-eyed stupid stage that had been the most unfortunate part of my last surgery got skipped over, and I actually remember coming to.

I remember coming to because I remember hearing the patient in the next bed (divided by a curtain) moaning. Shortly after that the room came into view, as did my parents. And my heart rate monitor. But, again, this is all a bit vague for me, so once again I am relying on the testimonies of Parental Units One and Two.

I don't even think I can approximate a dialogue here, because apparently when I come out of anesthesia, I'm talkative. Like, extremely talkative. Everything that I suppress during my most quiet times comes bubbling out in a diatribe of weird obsessions that are only relevant to things around me at that time. As soon as I could form a sentence, I went off at ninety and didn't calm down for about fifteen minutes. I would get really concerned about my heart rate, and turn around to stare at the heart rate monitor. I must have been willing it to do my bidding with my mind, because those were the only moments I would stop talking. But then I'd turn around as soon as my heart rate went sufficiently down, and I would then cycle through a list of things at top speed, and afterward I would stare at my monitor again. The list was something like this:

-What was on my toe again? Can I keep it?
-Something about physics (I had just taken physics the year before, and I had barely understood a word of it, but I UNDERSTOOD IT NOW, DAMMIT. I'm pretty sure that's the closest I've ever been to being high, because I've never understood most science even when sober and apparently I really got it when I was coming out of that foot surgery. Which is kind of disappointing, because I wish I understood it like I thought I did. Or at least, retained that drugged understanding).
-My heart rate is too high. That is bad. It's supposed to be (a number) here. *cue staring at heart rate monitor*

The poor guy in the next bed could only groan. I'm fairly sure half of the reason he was groaning so much was because I was talking as though I was a contestant of a game show where you can either talk or get thrown into a pool of sharks--so basically, constantly.

With the previous post-surgery I was languid; with this surgery, I felt fine and decided I was well enough to do most things myself, like get up and go to the bathroom. I actually was not well enough to do this, because as soon as I sat up all the color drained from my already-white face (I'm pretty sure that's an impossibility. Maybe all the pigment left my eyebrows and lashes or something) and the nurse had to come back to make me lie down.

The chattiness eventually wore off and they sent me home in a little black bootie with velcro straps, which I had to wear for several weeks afterward. By the time I got into the car, I was feeling heavy and gross and I was a bit perturbed at the levels of sunshine. Whatever painkillers they gave me made me super sick, and I threw up moments after arriving at my house. They also did not have the drowsiness side effect of my previous painkillers, so I was awake for the whole night the first night, foot elevated, paranoid about monsters or something.

Drugs, okay? Even prescribed ones. I was in a lot of pain and I'd spent the better part of two weeks previous watching murder mysteries. Of course I thought something was going to come kill me.

I was so happy when I could limp around, and even happier when I discarded the bootie and the bandage for regular shoes. I have a pretty awesome scar on my foot that runs about two inches along the top of my big toe, and no, I'm not taking a picture of my foot so you can see. Feet are gross.

Moral of the story is: don't give me anesthesia. Well, really, unless it's necessary and the alternative is being conscious of some part of my body being sliced open, please do give me anesthesia. Never is an example of what we English majors call hyperbole.

By all means, if I'm going in for surgery, anesthetize me. But don't expect the aftermath to be pretty.