I Could Hear Everything
I’m not a surgeon, but I had a screw put in to hold together a fracture in my wrist. At the last moment before surgery, the anesthetist told me I could have the surgery with a local rather than general anesthetic as planned.
So I let her make the call for me to be awake. That’s how I heard everything the doctor didn’t want me to hear. See, he didn’t realize I wasn’t under, and it was one eye-opening experience.
During the drilling, my surgeon started complaining at length about why he hates the drill he’s using and how it’s inferior to the other type of brand.
It was apparently the only one he could find at the time and he didn’t want to reschedule. So not great so far. Once the screw is in, the surgeon says to close up.
Someone asked if the screw should protrude as much as it was, to which he responded, “No, but we can get away with it, and you never want to take a screw out and put another in, because it will wear out the bone.”
Then silence for about 10 seconds while I feel them shifting my wrist around, followed by, “Actually we better put a smaller screw in.” When I was in recovery, the surgeon was surprised how quickly I woke up and had a slight look of surprise when I told him I was only under local.
Next thing he said was, “Surgery went well…” voltorbz