This happened to me, they were doing some cleanup in a second round of operations after a head injury in a car accident. I was 13 years old and didn't know better than to just accept it, if it happened now I would be very pissed, and I would have done more grunting and groaning until they fixed it. As it was after a some movement on my part they just said "hurry up, I think he's coming out" and had two people hold me down on either side.

It felt like two telephone poles had been inserted, in either nostril, and were jamming in to where they were scraping on the back of my skull. I mean, it felt EXACTLY like that, my eyes were taped shut, and I thought that might be what was actually happening.

There was a point where the pain went so out of range it wasn't really pain anymore, like you might be blinded by an extremely bright light to where you don't associate it with your eyes anymore.

On second reading of the article, I see that patient groups claim the 1-in-700 number, while the industry says 1-in-14,000.

Though any is too much- and StickyCarpet, yikes, dude. This kind of stuff is my worst nightmare. Sorry to hear about your experience... yeesh. At least they weren't cutting you open for heart surgery, I guess.

I believe it. A former boss's mother died from an old pacemaker she wouldn't get replaced. When she had it done initially they screwed up and she was frozen but could feel the whole thing.

I've read about this phenomenon before, and my conclusion is that I am simply not allowed to read about it or think about it any more at all. And when I saw the movie trailer, I said to myself "you will not be seeing that movie."

I was awake during part of my first hip replacement operation, with an epidural. It seemed like a good idea when we discussed anesthetic options, and I thought to myself "90 year old women have this operation, and go dancing 6 weeks later. What could be so tough?"

I heard and felt the surgeon dislocate my hip, and about 20 minutes later, he showed me the bloody head of my femur, with the damaged cartilage on the top of the ball. But they eventually put me out under a general, as the muscle mass of my thigh wouldn't relax enough for them to drive in the prosthetic pin and seat the ball into the cup, with only the epidural block.

For the second hip replacement, a week later, they gave me a general anesthetic, from the start. I remember 90 scary seconds or so, just as the curare went in, when I realized I really needed to breathe, and no longer could. And I couldn't make a sound, either. I remember a gray haze overcoming my peripheral vision, and a feeling of absolute panic, while I heard the anesthesiologist finishing some comment he was making about his weekend to another member of the surgical team. And then someone snapped on the ventilator fitting, and air was being pushed into me, and I realized, with insensible joy, that they weren't going to kill me accidentally.

I'm not a big fan of anesthesiologists.

"At least they weren't cutting you open for heart surgery"

If that's not incentive to have your cholesterol and blood pressure checked regualrly, I don't know what is. heheh

heh

Paul, my step-sister is married to an anaesthetist... he makes six million a year.

I think they are the most highly-paid medical professionals, right?

I had general when my wisdom teeth were taken out and remember everything...it was when I started to drift away that the dental surgeon went into my mouth, though it didn't hurt.

What? WHAT??? Jessica Alba is doing the nasty in a big-screen movie and nobody told me?