Saturday, November 01, 2008

Awake

Last year a movie came out called Awake. You probably saw the previews. It played on a popular fear of waking up during surgery... being paralyzed... but still feeling everything that happens during the procedure.

Now... this lead to people all over the country harassing anesthesiologists with stupid questions.

I mean seriously... did you call up NASA and ask them if there really was a moon sized space station capable of destroyign planets? I mean... you saw it on a movie right?

There are countless claims of course by people who say this happened to them. Never mind that you can pull the chart from their case and see plain as day that their blood pressure and heart rate never fluctuated.

See... Anesthesiologists don't just sit around back there with their thumbs up their butts. They moniter every vital sign. More than that... in many cases they manipulate them. They stop you from breathing and do it for you. If necessary... they stop your heart deliberately... then restart it.

Now ask yourself this question... when you're scared... or in severe pain... does your heart rate remain completely steady? Or does it start pounding like hell?

And on top of everything else... even if you did "get a little light", which is what they call it when you start twitching or something during surgery, they crank the gas up big time... and you stop twitching. Not to mention... they have these wonderful drugs that have the greatest of side effects... They eradicate short term memory.

So if you did wake up... no way in hell you'd remember it.

All of that said... If an anesthesiologist wanted you to feel it all and remember you felt it... he could... and if you payed attention during that assinine movie... you'll note the medical staff was actually trying kill the protagonist.

Oh... those drugs with the convenient side effects? I should also point out that some of the gases are known to cause extremely violent dreams... and think about it... you're going into surgery... what you scared of? What's on your mind?

So yes... I'm saying they dreamed it. All of them. Well.. except the ones that REALLY pissed off their anesthesiologists.

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