Hello I Am “awake”

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How would you handle waking up during surgery, not being able to move an inch, not being able to scream, but only to, hear and feel what’s going on in you’re operation, having to lie there until someone realises you are awake, it could take hours or even minutes for the surgeon to spot you. Could you Imagine the feeling of relief at the sound of the words“their awake.” The pain stops, and the apologising starts. This is what happened to these patients in the following stories.

An Australian woman wakes up during abdominal surgery.

A woman awakes during abdominal surgery, feeling every cut of the surgeons knife, unable to scream, or alert anyone. Because the anaesthesia that was meant to keep her sedated paralysed her. The woman could hear and feel, everything her eyes would not open, or flicker to let anyone know. The woman received a full statement from the hospital saying she was in fact awake during her operation.

A woman wakes up during eye surgery.

A woman was on the operating table having surgery done on her diseased eye. The woman woke up to the sounds of music, and the voice of the surgeons, saying “cut deeper, you need to go deeper.” She could feel them pulling and pulling on her eye. She tried to scream but nothing came out she could not move any part of her body. Finely she hears the surgeon say “she is awake.” The woman injured all most half of the 5 ½ hour surgery.

A woman wakes during hip surgery.

The woman wakes to bright lights, she sees doctors and nurses all around, they do not notice her at all. The woman knows she is on her side, then feels excruciating pain that shoots through her. The woman was conscious but paralysed, some point during the operation doctors realised she was awake, and quickly put her back under.

A man wakes up for 10 minutes enough time to see and hear things.

A man wakes up for the second time, only this time the sugary is finished, a after-care nurse came to tell the man that they had misplaced his dentures. The man told the nurse she put them in the side cabinet in the room where he had his operation. The nurse looked confused and asked “you mean the operating room?” The man replied “yes you said you would put them there for safe keeping.” The nurse when to cheek and found his teeth were he said they would be. The nurse told the doctor of her worries that the man had been awake during sugary.

How “Many.”

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These are only four stories of people waking up during surgery. There is estimated between 1,000 to 2,000 cases alone in the UK. The man with the dentures could have been one of the unreported cases.

Why might it happen.

An awareness during surgery, usually happens when the anaesthetist levels are misjudged, and the patient has been given a muscle relaxant to make sure they do not move during the surgery. This gives the name to anaesthesia awareness.

What is the out come of these patients.

Patients who experience, full awareness with explicit recall of the sugary, may suffer from an enormous trauma. Some patients experience post-traumatic stress disorder, leading to long lasting effects, such as nightmares, night terrors, flashbacks, and insomnia. Counselling and support can reduce the amount of harm this experience, if recognised early, this is why the cases need to be reported.