[Repeal The 17th]

"...1. Waking During Surgery Waking during surgery is rare..."

---

In 1958, at the age of 7, I woke up on the operating table in the middle of my tonsilectomy.
I still remember it quite well after nearly 50 years.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I'm going to take a wild guess and say you were able to move when you woke up - back in 1958 I would imagine you would have just received an inhalational anesthetic - not a combination of muscle relaxant, narcotic, sedative etc. So back then one could wake up but at least let someone know.

Now, it's possible to wake up and be completely paralyzed.
I.E. things have gotten worse, not better :)

Of course I'm basing this purely on a guess given the year (1958). Maybe you were paralyzed back then, just seems unlikely to me.

[Enosh]

Were you able to feel pain?

[el_chupacabra]

I recall waking up during the extraction of my wisdom teeth. I opened my eyes, heard the nurse say "he's coming back" and they put me back to sleep. Little did I know that I could have sued everyone in the room and lived the rest of my life sitting on a giant pile of money.

[HEY4QDEMS]

In 1958, at the age of 7, I woke up on the operating table in the middle of my tonsilectomy. I still remember it quite well after nearly 50 years.

Actually, I'm surprised that this isn't more common nowadays. My sister in law is an OR nurse and she had said that anesthesia is a very dangerous thing and that they pretty much use a rule of thumb based on a patients weight, age, sex etc. to give only just enough to keep the patient under and it is mixed with oxygen so when they finish the procedure and remove the anesthesia the patient would wake up within seconds.
She had never once mentioned a patient waking during a surgery and it seems to me that if they use such a delicate balance that waking should be commonplace.

[EQAndyBuzz]

"In 1958, at the age of 7, I woke up on the operating table in the middle of my tonsilectomy.
I still remember it quite well after nearly 50 years."

Remember the smell of the ether? To this day, when I get a whiff of anything that smells like that I gag.

[Valpal1]

Same thing happen to me in 1968 when I was 7 during my tonsellectomy.

I did not feel pain or move, but I could see a limited field of vision and I could hear their conversation. They didn't believe me.

[woofie]

maybe you were only dreaming you were awake