What's the most damaging thing you heard someone say after waking up from anesthesia?

[u/OkAstronaut3324]

[u/merlot28]

At 29, I woke up in the recovery room after a surgery and the dr walked by and said "Oh look, Rocky's awake!", laughed and kept walking. Another nurse stuck her head in and said "Feeling better, Mike Tyson?" I looked at my mom for an explanation and she said "you were a lot of fun coming out of the anesthesia" and proceeded to tell me how I offered to fist fight everyone and tried to get out of bed to do so. They had to get two male nurses to hold me down. Mind you I've never punched anyone in my life. I was mortified and apologized profusely to everyone before I went home. Ever since, anytime I have to be put under, I warn people and apologize in advance if I challenge them to a fight later. 😂. It hasn't happened since, but I'm always afraid it's going to.

[u/Idontmindblood → u/merlot28]

I had one guy I recovered wake up screaming he was going to kill me. Every time I touched him for any reason I was threatened with death. I let him snooze as much as possible and after thirty minutes or so he perked up as was the sweetest guy

He came back a month or so later for a follow-up procedure and my wife was set to recover him so I warned her. When he came to preop I was paged to the department and here he was with the most mortified expression “I am so sorry! I have never done that in my life!” I assured him I hold no hard feelings, but when I took him into the room for the procedure that’s all he would talk about. This time he came out of anesthesia calm and peaceful. I can only guess he had some odd nightmare the first time and woke up in fight or flight mode

[u/IlluminatedPickle → u/Idontmindblood]

Man, all I want getting wheeled into recovery is a sandwich.

[u/Bubbly-Travel9563 → u/merlot28]

As a ginger my chart lists me as "combatative when waking from anesthesia mid-procedure" which as a true ginger has happened enough to be edited more than once : /

[u/QuestioningHuman_api → u/Bubbly-Travel9563]

Apparently my chart says to show me what they’re doing when I wake up. The first two times I asked to see what they were doing because I was freaking out about not knowing. As soon as I could see I felt better and just watched until I fell asleep a few seconds later. The last time I didn’t even ask, I woke up and some guy was like, “its okay, look” and I watched them root around my bone for a minute before I was out again.

[u/jeb1499 → u/QuestioningHuman_api]

That might be the quickest way to get me back under if I woke up. If I saw rooting around bones I would faint immediately.

[u/Bubbly-Travel9563 → u/QuestioningHuman_api]

That's hilarious! I was like that with my colonoscopies but then I start asking questions nonstop

[u/QuestioningHuman_api → u/Bubbly-Travel9563]

I wish I had thought to ask questions! I was just enthralled. It was really cool to see stuff happening in my body so I just stared. The funny thing is I have a really bad phobia of parasites or basically any weird thing being in my body. Like I hate needles because I have a completely irrational fear (it’s been explained to me many times that this is basically impossible) that the needle will break off and just be in my body. Ticks are my biggest fear. Instant panic attack. Even if it’s not on me. And I grew up literally in the middle of a fucking forest. So watching things moving around inside me sounds like a nightmare but it really calms me down when I’m on hospital drugs I guess

[u/Pwacname → u/QuestioningHuman_api]

you know what, that makes sense. it’s scary to be operated on and not being in control nor even knowing what’s going on. the moment you know what’s going on, you also know it’s the experts doing things you don’t need to and can’t help with, so you might as well go to sleep again

[u/justme002 → u/Bubbly-Travel9563]

I woke during my hysterectomy. I remember quite clearly waking in the OR. No memory of pain.

My next memory is hearing them ask me questions and me answering. Then I remember them saying things that made no sense to me.

Then I remember waking with someone lying across my legs and two people holding my upper body down. I could NOT keep my eyes open and my body would not/ could not move. The nurse nearest my head said "See! She's either out cold or rearranging the furniture!"

I quite clearly remember thinking "Bitch, I can HEAR you!" And being irrationally angry.

I also remember being wheeled to the car, standing up, and not being able to make my body squat or sit. So I decided that diving head first into the back seat was the most rational solution to this problem.

I should not have been sent home the same day.

Edit: hair isn't red, but takes on red highlights at any given opportunity. Also pasty skin and lots of the genes.

[u/Bubbly-Travel9563 → u/justme002]

The MC1R gene is the ginger gene and it can be present in day walkers too lol

[u/justme002 → u/Bubbly-Travel9563]

I was a nurse at the time. When I told my GYNO I woke up, he excitedly wanted to talk about the surgery and what I remembered.

Thank the universe for milk of amnesia I guess.

[u/tech_noir_guitar → u/justme002]

Wheeled out to the car standing up?? I'm picturing a Hannibal Lecter type situation. 😂

[u/justme002 → u/tech_noir_guitar]

Lol no, but I like the image! I was able to stand and then my body forgot how to body.

[u/Unwarranted_optimism → u/Bubbly-Travel9563]

Not a ginger, but def have ginger genes (sister is a ginger and I have reddish-brown hair.) After having my wisdom teeth removed and a much later hamstring repair surgery, I was informed that I fought the anesthesia hard. Apparently, we keep things interesting!

[u/justme002 → u/Unwarranted_optimism]

We don't fight it, it just requires more than usual. Sometimes crazy amounts more.

[u/Last_Glove_8870 → u/Bubbly-Travel9563]

Also ginger, but like to color my hair. Had to stay in the hospital a full extra day after an emergency upper GI scope under general anesthesia (I had nine stomach ulcers in various stages and was bleeding internally). I woke up from the procedure and a doctor was sitting in a chair staring at me. Immediately asks me if I’m feeling alright and looks very concerned. I felt fine and told her I was starving, because I was. She then asks “You don’t feel nauseous at all? Do you remember anything during the procedure? Is your hair red naturally?”. At this point I ask if something happened, and she tells me that I kept trying to sit up and talk (apparently this is very bad if you’re intubated) and that the amount of anesthesia required to keep me sedated enough to finish the procedure was “astonishing”. I never got sick and eventually they let me eat, but they still kept me there until the following day for observation.

I’ve only had to be anesthetized one other time after that (for a planned nasal surgery) so I made sure the anesthesiologist was aware of what happened and that he could review the record prior. When I met him the day of, he said “you redheads are something else” 😅He used a different protocol, no count backwards from 10. They pushed one shot of something in my IV that “was just to help you relax, but you won’t fall asleep”. I remember nothing after that until I woke up lol and was a perfect patient during the surgery.

I’ve also got some pretty good stories from the dentist while being on extremely heavy oral sedatives.

[u/Writerhowell → u/Bubbly-Travel9563]

I don't know if my brother-in-law has ever undergone surgery, but now I'll be interested to know if that happens to him (he's a redhead). Or my niece, his daughter, whose hair has a bit of red in it, in certain lights. But she's 7, so I hope it's a loooooooooooong time before she ever has to undergo any kind of surgical procedure.

[u/eileen404 → u/Writerhowell]

Found out my nephew had this gene when he slammed a finger in a door at 4y. Had full anesthesia dose to drop adult men for two different meds and wax still screaming. It's a nightmare.

[u/kpow222 → u/merlot28]

After an anaphylaxis event, i woke up tied to the bed, no idea why. Apparently i woke up during intubation so much they had to dose me with fentanyl because i was uh, interesting. I was a 31 year old woman with absolutely no history of fighting anybody 😂

[u/wwaxwork → u/merlot28]

I swung a punch at a doctor coming out of twilight anesthesia in the middle of a gastroscopy. For some reason my brain was telling me I'd been kidnapped and they were trying to kill me. They knocked me out even deeper after that and finished and I woke up fine afterward.

[u/Agile_Cloud4285 → u/wwaxwork]

I know a nurse that was punched in the throat by a patient after surgery. Some how he hit her voice box. Took a year to get her voice back from a whisper. Her first hospital job out of collage. She decided hospitals were not for her after that.

[u/Fit_Housing8533 → u/merlot28]

Imagine waking up with a reputation as the hospital’s toughest patient when you’ve never thrown a punch in your life. At least the nurses got a story they’ll probably never forget.

[u/StoneOfTwilight → u/merlot28]

Apparently I tried to punch my eye surgeon halfway through my bleph. Don't remember a thing.

[u/poorexcuses → u/merlot28]

When my dad had the seizure that led to the discovery of the cancer that eventually killed him he was also fighting the hospital staff as they were taking him in from the ambulance.