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Original poster

Feeling so embarrassed after anaesthesia. Please tell me this has happened to others?

420 replies

ShortFlighted · 18/08/2023 17:18

A week ago, I had a surgery. I was extremely nervous before being put to sleep.

When I came round, I was in a lot of pain but my throat was so dry I couldn’t say “hey, I’m in pain” , so I just started whining “ouch “ “ouch “.

Then I kept taking off the oxygen mask because it was annoying me. I also asked multiple times where my car was and had to be reminded I was in hospital at least twice. I also kept waving to thin air. The nurse was nice enough but I could tell I wasn’t her favourite patient 😳.

Now I remember it, I’m so embarrassed and feel like I was probably a real pain in the arse. Coincidentally, I had to be kept in post op because I was groggier and woozier than expected.

Reassure me please!

OP posts:
GlomOfNit · 19/08/2023 21:06

In recovery after my ERPC, I flirted TERRIBLY with my anaesthetist (which I think he was amused about) and I'm still mortified to remember that I kept on asking him where he was from (he was Polish, as I remember) because he had quite a sexy accent. When I'd got ahold of myself a bit later, I thought 'bloody hell, he must have thought I was some sort of xenophobe or something!' Grin

I think probably everyone makes a twat of themselves in recovery but it's interesting reading all the different ways this happens! I bet the medics have a board somewhere where they put up the week's favourites.

lto2019 · 19/08/2023 21:09

TyrannasaurusJex · 19/08/2023 19:06

I kept asking where Jeff Goldblum was....

Brilliant - were you expecting him?

PTSDBarbiegirl · 19/08/2023 21:10

I had full blown meltdown culminating in screaming and hysteria, convinced my heart had stopped and I was going to be left to die.

helenatroy · 19/08/2023 21:19

Came round after an operation. Surgeons laughing their heads off, they said I had a full on conversation about restaurants. I’m Irish and they said I was putting in a posh accent. They said I talked the entire time. (I’m a chatter, what can I say).

TyrannasaurusJex · 19/08/2023 21:21

lto2019 · 19/08/2023 21:09

Brilliant - were you expecting him?

Show quote history

Apparently I started as I was going under... it wasn't clear whether I wanted him to be there or not!

BaconChops · 19/08/2023 21:26

My daughters friend recently had surgery and woke up bawling like a baby bless her. She was asking for her mum and was uncontrollable as she came to with the anaesthetic. I don’t think you should worry OP 💜

PlasticineKing · 19/08/2023 21:27

I woke up after major surgery on my ankle, screaming at the orthopaedic surgeon that this was the most painful thing that had ever happened to me, and how dare he do this to me (I slipped on thick ice, total accident). He came round later that day and said “don’t you remember me? I was not your favourite person a few hours ago!” 😂 I couldn’t remember ever seeing him before and I was mortified! Eternally grateful for the brilliant job he did!

rosyAndMoo · 19/08/2023 21:29

Not quite the same, but absolutely humiliating… I found out during my labour that I react very badly to pethedine. The midwife asked to examine me, and she was doing a “finger checked” and I told her “to get her “f*cking fingers out of my fanny..” and then proceeded to yell at her because “she was a dirty whore who was enjoying it too much”. I saw her the next day after she was on shift and I apologised profusely. It’s not my character to normally speak like that and I was so incredibly embarrassed. She was super lovely about it though - and said it wasn’t the worst she’d heard! (I’ll bet it wasn’t far from it though!)

ilovesushi · 19/08/2023 21:40

Please don't feel embarrassed. I am sure they have seen it all. My dad reacted really badly to anaesthetic and was hallucinating for quite a long time after. When I was visiting him in HDU we had a really normal conversation then he said "It would be fine here apart from this horse leaning over me all the time." The curved angle of the head of the bed looked slightly like a horse's head and he was convinced there was a horse standing at his shoulder just at the edg of his vision. I just really matter of factly told him, no it's your bed but it does have that shape. I tapped it so he knew it was just the frame. I didn't want to make a big deal of it. For subsequent ops they looked at alternate ways of knocking him out because it just did not agree with him.

Furryrug · 19/08/2023 21:50

I worked at the hospital where I had my surgery and had a bit of a crush on one of the OPD's. I was in recovery and he walked past , me shouting 'Oi Dave , I love you' wasn't my finest hour.

GirlOfTudor · 19/08/2023 21:56

They've seen far worse, believe me!

I can't remember being in recovery at all after my surgery. I just remember waking up in my room. Probably for the best! 😊

T1Dmama · 19/08/2023 22:36

After having local anaesthetic for a proceedure, I came round and passed out on the loo… then laid in bed feeling awful with a fan on me…. The nurse wasn’t terribly nice and kept making me sit up…. I’d lay back down feeling ill… eventually she came in all annoyed and made me sit up and get dressed to go home…. I did so but said I felt really unwell…. The nurse sat me up and handed me a kidney shaped paper sick bowl ….. I literally vomited and it hit the bowl with such force that it flew out the other side, all over my trousers and all over the nurse!! I was like ‘I did tell you I felt sick!!’
I had to go home in my Pj’s and she was moaning that she had to spend her shift covered in puke 😂😂
I never felt guilty though… she was horrible! (And it was a private hospital so I was a paying patient!)

Geneva12 · 19/08/2023 22:39

My story’s quite boring after reading these. I came round and tried to get out of the bed then burst into tears. In recovery someone asked me if I was okay and I hid under the bedsheets.

Meredithmama · 19/08/2023 22:49

Honestly when my son went under a GA I was called quickly to recovery as he was trying to dive off the edge of the trolley to go swimming.

Also I had my appendix out when I was 12 when I woke up I literally forgot all about it got out of bed ended up yanking my candula out and splitting my stitches ended up back in surgery 😳

postitnote8 · 19/08/2023 23:06

I was trying to pull my cannula out the moment I woke up, because as far as I was concerned they were bullshitting me that it was morphine. I remember feeling scared and trying to get myself up and off the bed, batting staff away. It was a long time ago and I was in a foreign country and didn't speak the language, but I'm pretty sure I remember being gassed again. I was told I was 'a very bad girl' once I'd recovered!

LBFseBrom · 19/08/2023 23:08

You are not alone!

ConfusingTrousers · 19/08/2023 23:33

That's really nothing. I sang "Danny Boy" for five minutes to try to get an Irish nurse to give me water. I don't know the words (apparently I had a good go at making them up).

MustWeDoThis · 19/08/2023 23:47

I was high on everything during the birth of my first daughter and yelled at the bulbous looking firealarm/sprinkler on the ceiling, "There's a giant condom on the ceiling but that's too late for me now!" Then pointed at my husband and cried, "Useless C**t!" And then angrily hissed at the gas&air tank behind me, "Sit down and eat your sandwiches ffs!" Thinking it was my husband.

TattedBarley · 19/08/2023 23:59

While in labour with DD I was in so much pain and had so much gas and air I was delirious, on the way to be prepped for ecs I wandered into the hallway in my gown, bare arse totally on show and almost walked in to someone else’s room ! I was stopped moments before I could give some poor other lady in labour the fright of her life lol.

xYerDaSellsAvonx · 20/08/2023 00:35

I told my midwife during my first labour that I could get him all the Sugar Puffs he wanted. No questions asked. I also told him that the student midwife had nicked the gas and air when he left the room. I have no memory of this. Thank god dh was there to absolve her of stealing meds 😳

Yellowflower47 · 20/08/2023 01:00

Apparently I woke up complaining of hunger on one occasion following a GA (not surprised, nil by mouth is torture!). I then told the recovery staff that I would like food from the kebab shop and proceeded to give them my order to phone in. Sadly they didn’t sort it and I got a sandwich on the ward a few hours later instead.

jellybe · 20/08/2023 01:02

I cried uncontrollably and switched between asking for my mum and my boyfriend I was 20 at the time. I also kept trying to pull the mask off. Honestly, I think they are used to it as lots of people have strange reactions when the come round from a GA.

KateKateLee · 20/08/2023 01:58

They’ll have seen it all before and worse. Please don’t worry. When I came round the nurses were discussing the new decorations around the paediatric bed. I said oh I can’t see that. They looked really worried until I added I don’t have my glasses on!

WeetabixTowels · 20/08/2023 02:07

Count yourself lucky OP. I once had gynae surgery and when I came round in the recovery room I loudly declared how happy I was to be able to start shagging again. When I became a bit more sober i swear I’d have discharged myself had I been able to walk. Mortifying!

Itslookinggood · 20/08/2023 02:21

I told EXH while sky high on pethidine during labour, that I didn't know what he was worried about, the baby wasn't his anyway. It was his friend's.

that took some living down.

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