“We will need to do a surgery” is one of those scary statements that no patient would wish to hear from their doctors. The practice brings out several emotions in people’s minds, from fear to stress about what will happen post-surgery. However, the process has become smoother with advanced medical tools than before. Also, sedatives have become a life savior for patients going through surgery by completely kicking out the feeling of pain.
But, can you wonder what can happen if a patient wakes up before the surgery has been completed? This is something nobody would want to experience. But, many patients have gone through such horrific surgery experiences in real life.
The article has compiled the “when you wake up mid-surgery this happens” story series by the patients. So, let us explore each of the stories one by one that came out to be a literal nightmare for patients.
A man woke up during mid-surgery of his knees
This incident happened around the mid-90s. A man found himself fully awake during his knee surgery. He was surrounded by doctors and nurses wearing white masks. When he opened his eyes, they turned and stared at him, and the man looked down and saw his clamped leg. He then looked at one of the doctors who seemed to be the leading surgeon and said he didn’t think he wanted to wake up to see this. They put him back under, and during the entire period, he felt the pain.
After the surgery, when he woke up, the doctor made an apology to him. The man claimed that he had specifically asked for more anesthesia dosage. But, they gave him the normal dose only.
When the patient couldn’t catch breath mid-surgery
The next one is another interesting incident in this story series: when you wake up mid-surgery, this happens. The patient woke up in the middle of the surgery and felt quite peaceful. Everything was quiet vogue around them. However, they got the feeling of people moving around them. But when they tried taking a breath and couldn’t do it, they panicked. They realized their lungs were not taking in the air. They felt paralyzed and were not able to tell any of the doctors. They thought they would die like that. But, luckily someone noticed the situation as the person saw doctors being alarmed and paying extra attention to them.
Later, the same patient met their doctor to talk about it. The doctor agreed there were some problems with the anaesthesiology.
Being misdiagnosed twice to waking up mid-surgery
The experience of a 17 years old appendicitis patient is next in our when you wake up
mid-surgery this happens story series. The patient was misdiagnosed two times with lymph node swelling. But in actuality, the issue was a ruptured appendix that grew into a cyst. It was the softball size and needed emergency surgery that could have killed the patient if left any longer. Thus, they drained the cyst that night only. The patient was given anesthesia for the procedure but was woken up during the surgery. They felt the extreme force on their lower right portion where they had appendix. They saw doctors insert tubes into their abdomen. It was painful, and the puss smell draining out of the cyst was really bad.
Sedation lasted only for 10 minutes
The patient was 17 years old and had to go through an endoscopy procedure. The patient experienced sedation for the first time, and it didn’t go well. The patient was pale and red-haired because of which they had different effects of sedation and narcotics in their body. They needed more dosage of sedation to knock them out.
The sedation given to the patient lasted only for 10 minutes, and they woke up suddenly during the mid-procedure. The patient went violent and tried kicking and pushing to pull out the endoscope. They kept fighting nurses and doctors present there. Doctors gave them more doses of sedatives and completed the operation.
The patient gained consciousness during humerus repair surgery
A patient woke up in between a shattered humerus repair surgery. Their entire shoulder area was open and dissected, and the doctor had a screwdriver and a drill for attaching the steel plate to the bones and pulling the parts in one place. The patient panicked and screamed through the oxygen mask, scarring the doctors. The patient continued to curse due to pain but was given a sedative immediately by the anesthesiologist making the patient lose consciousness again. The patient’s scream was audible to his spouse who was in the waiting room. However, she did calm herself down and didn’t try to rush into the operation room. However, the patient apologized for all his cursing in the operation theatre to doctors a week later.
The patient saw doctors taking his wisdom teeth out
The patient got surgery for pulling out their wisdom teeth. At one instance during the procedure, the patient woke up feeling extremely tired and numb. They couldn’t even move a finger. The patient saw three people around him with hands covered in blood poking inside their mouths using some tools.
Though the patient didn’t feel the pain, they didn’t want to be in such a weird situation. So the patient, with all their strength, twitched a finger which a nurse there noticed. The nurse then went to the IV drip to fiddle it. Next, the patient felt like losing consciousness again.
The experience was not too bad, but the patient doesn’t seem to want to be in such a condition ever again.
The patient woke up at the drilling sound
The female patient went through ankle surgery and needed to get a few pins fixed. She woke up hearing the drilling sound and huge pressure on the foot. But they didn’t feel any pain. On waking up, she looked at the anesthesiologist present there, who said, ‘Hold on, she is waking up; everyone present there stopped, and they gave her more dosage of anesthesia. After waking up again, she was in the recovery ICU with the doctor.
The doctor told her only 15 minutes were left to complete the surgery when she woke up in the middle. The doctor said they were scared as well as it was the first time somebody got back to consciousness mid-surgery.
Waking up during foot surgery
The patient had to go through foot surgery and was given local anesthesia and conscious sedation in the foot. The male patient had consciousness throughout the surgery. Unlike other patients mentioned in the series: when you wake up mid-surgery, this happens; this one was quite chill about it. He said he felt like all the surgeons were his friends, and he felt very comfortable in the room.
The doctors were sawing off one of the parts of his bone, and he said that felt good to him. He compared the experience to a foot massage. He even asked the surgeons if he could see everything they were doing to his foot, but they disagreed with him. He remembers asking the same question more than once throughout the surgery.
And when he woke up after the surgery, he was transferred to the recovery room. He remembered one of the surgeons told him to get into the stretcher placed parallel to his bed.
The doctor greeted the patient with a Hello mid-surgery
Here’s another story of patients waking up with wisdom teeth removal. The doctor was not shocked or stressed by the patient waking up while they weren’t finished doing the job. The patient heard the doctor saying Oh, Hello to them while they woke up. Then the doctor asked the nurse to give more sedatives to put the patient back to sleep. The next thing the patient recalled was a nurse taking out cotton that was placed in their mouth. But, the patient has already swallowed it.
A woman got up during their IVF procedure
Sharing her medical experiences, the woman said she has gone through IVF procedures having two egg retrievals surgeries. But the scary thing that happened to her was she did wake up to the pain mid-surgery.
But the doctors put her back on sedative soon after she woke up. The doctors were concerned about what happened and sent her for chest X-rays. They diagnosed the possibility of her having sleep apnea that made her wake up mid-surgery.
So these were some of the interesting and scary surgery experiences of people we tried to compile in this when you wake up mid-surgery, this happens series. The stories we read above clearly show that patients gaining consciousness in between surgeries is an equally stressful experience for doctors as it is for patients.
But we also saw them handling the situation quite well without letting the patients feel any more pain. Have you been in a similar situation in your medical experiences? Or do you know someone who has these types of stories to share?
Let us know what your thoughts are in the comment section..