Slipped our lovely elderly gentleman a small warm up dose of midazolam before his general anaesthetic today, and was quite surprised to hear him then fess up to a previous heroin addiction. This sort of truth serum reaction to the drugs we give is actually pretty rare, you might be relieved to hear.
\nI had a general anaesthetic myself a couple of years ago, fixing a broken nose. The anaesthetist came out to theatre reception, put a drip in my arm, \u00a0gave me an injection of something, and I remember nothing from then on. The thing is, I know I must have been awake for at least another ten minutes, while they wheeled me into theatre, checked me in – during which I must have been awake and talking – put the monitoring on, gave me some oxygen for a minute or so, and then gave me the drugs to render me unconscious. And I honestly hate to think what I was doing or saying in front of all those people for that missing time. Chances are, nothing unusual or outrageous, but I have always been afraid that in such a situation I would confess my love for a colleague – no one in particular, which does make it a rather odd fear – but just the possibility that I might have done so still gives me a shiver of anticipatory embarrassment, like a recovered memory hanging around in the background, pretending its not really there.
\nThe first thing I remember after the op is being mid sentence in a discussion with the recovery room nurse. She had a patient look on her face. I\u2019m certain recovery staff hear much more in the way of disjointed rambling conversations than theatre staff do, but they are used to it, and for some reason it doesn\u2019t seem such a concern what I might have been droning on about as I woke up. \u00a0The recovery room has much more of a feeling of drugged relief, even if occasionally mixed in with some pain or nausea, as compared to the heightened anticipatory adrenaline-filled fear of that preop time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slipped our lovely elderly gentleman a small warm up dose of midazolam before his general anaesthetic today,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-17z","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13147,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/05\/the-stuff-of-nightmares-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":4313,"position":0},"title":"The stuff of nightmares","author":"Interloper11","date":"August 5, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Woken in the early hours this morning by Simon crying out in his sleep. It\u2019s quite disturbing when he does this. He sounds genuinely distressed: \u201cHelp! Help! Help!\u201d I used to wake him up when it happened but then I read you\u2019re better off just letting them sleep, because otherwise\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13382,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/19\/conference-feedback\/","url_meta":{"origin":4313,"position":1},"title":"Conference feedback","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 19, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, maybe there\u2019s very little interest amongst you in the latest developments in anaesthesia, particularly for the Russian bots I\u2019m guessing. On the other hand, it\u2019s your taxes that have helped fund my trip, so you deserve a report whether you want it or not. I\u2019ll just discuss a few\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_7537-1024x768.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_7537-1024x768.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_7537-1024x768.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":841,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/29\/tell-me-why\/","url_meta":{"origin":4313,"position":2},"title":"Tell me why","author":"Interloper11","date":"October 29, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Thrombectomy count = 3 Awake craniotomy count = 2 Weather = a wet and cold 7 degrees! When it was mid twenties all last week! 13 people in theatre today observing the surgery, not including anyone who actually had a job to do, or the three people looking in through\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/C9758C99-CF63-4AA0-99EE-C12F0C1653E4-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6141,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/01\/accident-or-design\/","url_meta":{"origin":4313,"position":3},"title":"Accident or design?","author":"Interloper11","date":"February 1, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the coffee my anaesthetic tech brought into theatre for me this morning. Must make a note not to ask her for any more favours in future.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/09A88247-EA00-4C55-8D4F-873856E8C8BC-e1612212585385-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8329,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/15\/belfast-take-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":4313,"position":4},"title":"Belfast – take two","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, it\u2019s grown on me, I must confess. Up early for the first session of the conference, on delirium. First up, a twenty minute presentation on a study on whether having a spinal anaesthetic and being awake for surgery on your broken hip is any better than having a standard\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/F3999A67-E493-40EE-8F8B-073A4177D093-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9839,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/01\/putting-my-foot-in-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":4313,"position":5},"title":"Putting my foot in it","author":"Interloper11","date":"March 1, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I went to see the first patient on my theatre list this morning, on the day of surgery admission ward. She was a fit and well young woman, whom I saw with her mother. There was nothing concerning in her history, and in fact it was her first ever anaesthetic.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}