Anesthesia for the Unhappy Drunk

Awaking after surgery has always been a struggle for me.  I am what some doctors refer to as an "unhappy drunk." What this means, in addition to the fact that I have been known to end up in tears when I drink too much (just ask my husband or any sister of Chi Alpha Zeta sorority at Plymouth State College), is that I wake up from anesthesia sobbing and asking for someone from my immediate family. The first time it happened was when I had my wisdom teeth removed during my college years. I awoke in a completely different room in the dentist's office from where I was anesthetized and because I had a mouthful of cotton, my sobbing sounded something like, "I wha ma da." (I want my Dad.) When the dental assistant couldn't figure out what I was saying, I began gesturing a steering wheel - still sobbing - indicating that I wanted my driver. She thought I wanted to drive and laid me back down where I continued to sob. My dad loaded me up in the car - still sobbing - drove us 20 minutes home - still sobbing - and got me set up on the couch - still sobbing. Now I was saying things like, "I do no wha I cwyin, it no hur! I ju ca sta cwyin!" (I don't know why I'm crying, it doesn't even hurt! I just cant stop crying!) I asked an anesthesiologist once why this happens and he said that anesthesia is a lot like getting really rip roaring drunk and losing all inhibition, so whatever emotion is truly in you comes out. He looked me dead in the eye and said, "You, my dear, are an unhappy drunk." When I started to look back, I realized he was right!

Waking up in the recovery room at Erlanger Women's East after my party in the OR, was no exception. I was sobbing and asking for my sister - who lived 8 states away. She also was not the person waiting to take me home. That was my husband, Jim.  While I was still coming down from my unhappy drunken stupor, Dr. McLelland informed Jim that she had found and removed a lot of something called endometriosis, a disease that neither of us had ever heard of before. I was told to rest and be "a slug on the couch" for the next several days and follow back up with her in the office a week later. We were sent home before 2pm.

Of course, when I got home, I had a 3 year old and a 10 year old there waiting for me and I was feeling good from the pain medication. I found myself sitting on the floor pulling out toy playsets and setting up worlds of Winnie the Pooh with my girls by dinner time. I was the exact opposite of "a slug on the couch" until I awoke the next day to pain that felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck. No one had warned me about the "gas effect." For abdominal laparoscopy, they create three or four small incisions and then inflate your abdominal cavity with air. When they close the incisions, the air remains trapped and it gets displaced and re-absorbed into the body. Because the gas rises, the pain associated with that process usually happens in the shoulders and arms.  Additionally, because I had been rolling around on the floor laughing with my girls the afternoon prior, the pain hit me like a ton of bricks!

When I followed up with Dr. McLelland a week later, she assured me that the surgery had been a success and that the endometriosis had all been removed. I was still a little sore from being the worst patient EVER and not following the one rule - "slug on the couch" - but overall, I didn't concern myself with the word endometriosis. Whatever it is/was, it was gone now and in my "unhappy drunk" mind, life was about to go on...