I had to have a minor medical procedure today and the important thing is that they anesthetized me for it. I warned them up front that I do not wake up well from anesthesia, as in I wake up belligerent over my disorientation and ready to escape unfamiliar surroundings, and asked them to please make sure Sark was in the room when I woke up.
Highlights from today include:
They did notmake sure Sark was in the room when I woke up
Thehot second I had any amount of consciousness returned, I attempted to get out of the bed and was thwarted by the railing they left up and my technician repeatedly telling me to lie down, which I did not because I was CERTAIN that I needed to leave.
I tried to remove my IV myself 15+ times in under 3 minutes and told the technician I could do it. I could not; I had asked the nurse who put it in to put extra tape on it so that I could not. I could also not remove the rest of the things they had me connected to, but only because I couldn’t figure out how, not for lack of trying
I could not remember the technician’s face because my facial blindness is MUCH worse when tired, and I called him Steven several times, and Josh. His name was Andrew.
My gown slipped down my shoulder in my struggles to escape, and the technician attempted to replace it and I told him “you’ve seen a boob, Steven.” His name was still Andrew, and the procedure space was an open outpatient area with other people
I was instructed not to bend over or the anesthetic would ‘rush to my head’ to which I responded in outrage “WELL WHERE THE HELL IS IT NOW?”
I asked everyone present “who the hell are you” and insisted the doctor tell me how to say her first name. They asked me if I remembered Sark when he arrived a minute later, and I stalled out entirely staring at him like a deer in headlights because I could not parse how he got there.
When they brought Sark in, the technician asked him “Does she normally wake up like this” and Sark told him “Depends on when you wake her up.” which is very fair of him because he remembers that I was woken at 4am once by someone honking their horn repeatedly because they wanted to fight my neighbor, and I charged outside in pajamas across a field to go attack their car while shouting about how rude they were and that they could fight me. They did not want to fight me, if you were wondering.
Sark told me they fetched him from the waiting room by saying “maybe you can come calm her down.”
This all happened in approximately 5 minutes, before I had gotten control of myself and could remember Andrew’s name and shape.
Andrew told me goodbye at the door and thanked me for being his most amusing patient today.
At least I managed to put my own clothes on and walk out the front door unassisted this time.
… “this time“?
Yeah the last time I was anesthetized, as soon as I was conscious I managed to actually make it out of the bed, naked and confused, and the doctor was like “well good luck with that” and left me squirming on the floor like an overturned turtle, shouting angrily at my mother that I could put my own clothes on while being entirely incapable of actually doing so. I remember being in the car afterward but not how I got there. I feel like this time was a vast improvement for me. Really taking a leap forward in dignity.
There are quite a few people reblogging this who are very angry on my behalf because the staff didn’t listen to me and have Sark in the room when I woke up, and while it is very valid to be angry at the medical community in general for not listening to patients, I feel I need to make it clear that Sark being in the room was not for my benefit, it was for theirs. I would have done nothing different. I absolutely would still have attempted freedom and been just as belligerent. Sark has absolutely no ability to calm me down in that state, but he would have made Andrew’s job easier for him, like some kind of rehabber that is better at handling the feral raccoon than the vet that’s just trying to do their job. Instead Andrew got to babysit my uncoordinated escape attempts personally, which I am positive he regretted enough to make up for not listening to me.
