Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I get squeamish at most things like surgery shows, needles and blood. When I was at Brassards recovery centre, met a girl who requested to be awake during the surgery. Good God! I could never have been awake, and was thankful to be knocked out the entire 2.5 hours.
Funny, 1/2 hour after being wheeled back to my room, I was on Facebook.

That kind of surgery? Good grief, no! I WAS awake during cataract surgery. That was odd. They numb your eye, cut a small slit, insert a probe that vibrates the bad lens apart then vacuums it out, then insert a new plastic lens folded up like an umbrella that opens up, then cover the eye. When the anesthesia wears off it feels like you have something in your eye for days. I'll need to have the other one done before long.

I would rather be out. Being awake for a stent removal after it is thoroughly numbed that has minimal discomfort is bad enough.Secondly, considering my medical history even though the problem hasn't occurred in several years they will have to put me out. Even though the risk is slight for me to have another seizure in the future they can't take that chance of me moving around during surgery.

Quote from: Dee Walker on February 14, 2015, 10:07:10 AM
That kind of surgery? Good grief, no! I WAS awake during cataract surgery. That was odd. They numb your eye, cut a small slit, insert a probe that vibrates the bad lens apart then vacuums it out, then insert a new plastic lens folded up like an umbrella that opens up, then cover the eye. When the anesthesia wears off it feels like you have something in your eye for days. I'll need to have the other one done before long.

I was awake for the 20 minute or so tracheal shave. Felt weird  I swore they had cut me from ear to ear to do the procedure, but when the bandages came off few days later, I bet the scar was maybe 3/4 inch.

Maybe if I had it done in my late teens early 20s I would have had it video taped.

I am hyper sensitivity to any Anastasia so just the one they normally give just to relax knocks me out cold.

Quote from: Muffinheart on February 14, 2015, 10:00:44 AM
I get squeamish at most things like surgery shows, needles and blood. When I was at Brassards recovery centre, met a girl who requested to be awake during the surgery. Good God! I could never have been awake, and was thankful to be knocked out the entire 2.5 hours.
Funny, 1/2 hour after being wheeled back to my room, I was on Facebook.

HELL NO :o I can hardly even handle it at the dentist/periodontist ::)

My day in Canada is coming  :) My psych asked me to get Dr Brassards requirements so he can write my first letter and he's gonna get that next week ;D

NO. :)

I made it clear to Brassard that I'd be *very* upset if I woke up during!! (Thankfully, I didn't really wake up until halfway through the recovery room time.)

I'd be bored to death over the six hours it took for mine.

I was awake though for the revision surgery and took local anesthesia shots down below. not the most fun thing for newly postop pussy

Hells to the no. Excuse my language.  ;D

However, Suporn will be giving me photos of my operation so it's basically the same thing, lol. I'll be able to see what he did, step by step.

No way. Normally I can stand watching blood, surgery, etc. but when I saw a SRS video on YouTube I couldn't handle it after the first two seconds.

Nope, just no.. I'd want all the drugs and unconsciousness I could get.

Yeah. I was awake during orchiectomy since it was only local anesthesia. I didn't feel anything.

Lol I was awake for most of my surgery (gcs) at brassard 3 month ago. I noticed they had started cause of the "burned flesh smell". Mind you i felt nothing and my brain tells me it lasted 25 minutes, not 2.5 hours  ;D

No freaking way!  Wake me up when it's over.   I was out for the orchi and wouldn't have done it any other way.

No, no, no, no, no! Oh my god, no! Just thinking about it is getting me all freaked out. I guess if there were absolutely no other way, but... *shivers*

Even the worst curse words that I can think of (which I won't use because I'm not sure what the policy is) can't adequately express how much I do not want to be awake.

Just for a reference consider that thousands of Cesarian sections performed annually are largely done with regional anesthesia.  Either a spinal or continuous lumbar epidural can provide total anesthesia for your lower half while a bit of sedation or more can keep a person quite safe and comfortable with less overall medication and mutli-system impacts.  Of course our C section moms get a baby and often share the experience with a partner as a celebration.  And then wouldn't SRS/GCS be something to celebrate too?   Some people actually like to know what is going on during surgery with hip surgery frequently being done under "awake" plus a regional anesthetic that both patients and surgeons like.  I look forward to cracking jokes as they whack my nuts. :D :D :D

No I don't' want to know. I just want to happen. If I woke up with a free magical SRS, I wouldn't care how or why it happened, just grateful that it did.

Nay, nay and thrice nay.
I had a vasectomy about 7 yrs ago a desperately wanted to be asleep but it's a 5 min job so they wouldn't dream of knocking me out, I concentrated on counting the dimples on the ceiling tiles whilst listening to my girlfriends oohs and ahs of fascination, she offered to give me a blow by blow description and was warned that she'd be dumped if she uttered a word.

Long before I came out I worked in a magazine warehouse and had to be sent home with "food poisoning" one day, I didn't want to mention I'd tried to look at photos of GRS in an issue of Bizzare and lost the contents of my tummy.

When I had my wisdom teeth pulled I had the option of being knocked out or semi-conscious. There was no way I wanted to hear the sound of cracking teeth and tugging at my jaw, so under I went. I will admit that one of my fears in going through my transition was waking up during surgery, but thankfully I managed to stay under and never knew what hit me. Only once (in fact it was my srs surgery) I was sick and vomiting after coming out of anesthesia. After a few minutes of feeling sick I felt wonderful but tired.

Quote from: Zumbagirl on February 24, 2015, 07:59:36 PM
When I had my wisdom teeth pulled I had the option of being knocked out or semi-conscious. There was no way I wanted to hear the sound of cracking teeth and tugging at my jaw

I'm going to make you wince, cringe & squirm here, I had an accident as a child & smashed every tooth in my head, my bottom set were baby teeth but the adult teeth had already come through. I spent the next few years having regular treatment & developed a phobia of injections so by the time I was 10 I had dental treatment without an injection, fillings, extractions & absesses were no problem.
I'd ask the dentist to put on my choice of relaxing music & let my mind go elsewhere, even dentists would cringe at performing extractions without anesthetic but the body does have the ability to block out a certain amount of pain.

I was under general anesthesia on Thursday for the first time and it's way better.
I remember expecting to get sleepy when they told me I will next thing I know I woke up and everything is over.

I was a corpsman in the Navy.  I have assisted in autopsies, worked 2 years in an emergency room, was an EMT for that same ER, have sutured myself, and many in my family, and participated in 4 natural child births of my kids.  Having said that to explain my lack of squeemishness with medical procedures: Yes, I would not be adverse to being awake and being able to hear the Drs and nurses while the procedure was going on.  I would even like to have mine filmed so I could see exactly what went on. 

I have always refused to watch video's of the op because it could get me worried however I would love to get my gopro set up and film my op but I'm not sure Chett would allow me. I intend to ask though  ;D Maybe a timelapse but we'll see, As for being awake? I don't think it would be safe for me because when I'm nervous I cannot be stopped from telling jokes so poor Chett would have to drug me or he'd never get it done  ;D ;D ;D

Hugs

Sorcha

I have been in cases when people have boot wanted to be awake...awoke.  No they did not remember.  Also I have been in cases when the drugs were given to be cognizant of pain but not remember the pain.  I have been in cases when people awoke and asked to take certainty  exits for various reasons.   Fact is that "no" is the answer!   


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I'd highly prefer to out cold.
I'm not particularly squeamish, and have always made myself watch surgeries being performed so I knew what I was signing up for. This compels me to be thorough when selecting the surgeon I want. The nervousness I've had before a root canal and my FFS was assuaged by knowing the person operating on me was my informed best choice.
I was out for close to 11 hours for my FFS. That whole couple of days is pretty hard to remember, but it was pretty cool how fast it seemed. My anesthesiologist told me to breath in after placing the apparatus over my nose and mouth, and then I was being awoken and congratulated by my surgeon. I bled more than they wanted me to, so I was pretty dehydrated, but I can honestly say the thing I liked least about the surgery was the hormone withdrawal.
I don't imagine SRS is going to be much different. I'm probably going to hate the hormone withdrawal, and not enjoy the pain during recovery. Luckily I usually heal pretty fast, but it's still hard to bounce back from intensive surgery.


     Hugs,
- Katie
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If you asked me a couple of years ago, I would have said "Are you kidding? Of course I want to be asleep."

However, since then I've had a couple of very scary and uncomfortable experiences waking up from general anesthesia. And some weird, lingering mental effects for a couple of days after.  :o

So now I'm kind of freaked out by going under. If a nerve or spinal block and light sedation is an option, I'll take it...

um... let me think...




HELL NO.

I'll look at the photos and video after I recover.

short answer: No

Long answer: Hell no

Quote from: Eveline on March 12, 2015, 09:54:57 PM
If you asked me a couple of years ago, I would have said "Are you kidding? Of course I want to be asleep."

However, since then I've had a couple of very scary and uncomfortable experiences waking up from general anesthesia. And some weird, lingering mental effects for a couple of days after.  :o

So now I'm kind of freaked out by going under. If a nerve or spinal block and light sedation is an option, I'll take it...

Ever had a spinal block?  I just had one in november for kidney stones.  Somehow I was out of it, later they guaranteed I would be up and walking by 4pm, I couldn't feel/move my legs til after 8pm.  They thought I was joking.  I was freaking out thinking they paralyzed me!  I will never do that again, just knock me out or use a hammer;)  whenever I see a paraplegic,  I have deep sympathy for them.  Just those few hrs were my nightmare!  It wasn't the fact I couldn't move them, it was how it felt and how I felt anchored down and couldn't move.. 
I've had dozens of surgeries where I'm out, and wake up w no problems..  just tell them u wake up nautious, they give you Zofran and everything is good;)

No, no need. I had a complete facelift last summer & the doc wanted to give me all the details about the surgery. I told him please no, just put me to sleep & do your job. I awoke & was just fine. GRS to me will be the same process I hope. Relax, have a nice sleep & let your surgeon create a nice vagina to enjoy.

Hi everyone new to this site...how do i write a question on this app??

Welcome aboard.  To post; go to an appropriate section in the forums and hit the NEW TOPIC button

I've been thinking about it sometimes. But I think that it could do more "harm" if you are awake than under anesthesia. I mean if you start to panic and moving your body in the middle of the procedure. My SRS took 3 hours, and I highly doubt that I wouldn't stand 30 min awake. I know that some surgeries can be done if you are heavily sedated.

Quote from: Snöfrost on March 19, 2015, 07:06:04 PM
I've been thinking about it sometimes. But I think that it could do more "harm" if you are awake than under anesthesia. I mean if you start to panic and moving your body in the middle of the procedure. My SRS took 3 hours, and I highly doubt that I wouldn't stand 30 min awake. I know that some surgeries can be done if you are heavily sedated.

indeed. I have to ask if I can get gassed first just to keep from flailing around to get the darn IV put into me for my GRS. starting the procedure would need to be out or the body is going to shut down from shock anyways. But midway through when everything is getting cauterized and stitched in place, it may be possible. I know that its not unheard of for someone to get semi-conscious midway through a surgery.

Would be nice to be able to watch.

For SRS? No, not really... I was gone for 6 hours.

Can't imagine being awake for that long staring at such bright lights and hearing all the cutlery!  :D

But... I must say that being under for 6 hours is some very strange experience. Still to this day I struggle with "lost time". 6 hours were gone and I did not know anything until I was in my room. It's not anything like sleep... it's more a like a complete coma or death. It's a very strange experience that you never seem to experience the actual transition, the actual surgery, it's just like someone flips a switch on and off and it's done. You never experience it this way.... it's strange in a sense. So I do understand the "need" to be "there" and witness the operation... so that you experience the transition. Right now it feels if someone stole my memory of it, I don't know, I cannot explain the feeling...

I think if I had to do it again (theoretically) I would have asked to videotape it. Just to be sure it actually happened... and so that I can experience the change. Right now it's a done deal and I have to accept it without any memory of it. I know that sounds weird, but as I said I cannot explain my feelings adequate enough.

Best described as: someone threw a party, and you missed it.

NOOOOOO. Never if I could help it and only if it was the only way to get it done.  If it wasn't an awful pain to ask them to record it I would like that as a trophy of sorts, but don't know if I'd be able to watch it...

I work at a hospital and I've seen all kinds of crazy sx.  They don't do trans-related stuff because they are a Catholic hospital, which is too bad I'd be interested to see, I guess?  But I've witnessed all kinds of other stuff and I hate the feeling of dentists rummaging around in my mouth- I can't imagine how strange it would feel to get a chest reduction done!  As much as I want it, I want to be out and numb the whole time, regardless of how bad it is waking up.  There's even a song by the Laryngospasms called "Waking Up is Hard to Do" as a spoof on the classic "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" by various artists...  It sucks but I hate sitting around waiting on someone else to do stuff before I can do my own thing.  Aside from the awful sounds and weird feelings, the worst part of being awake during wisdom tooth surgery was being bored and not wanting to mess the Doc up by moving around!

Seeing how much my coworkers have to lift and move patients I'd be kind of overly stiff trying to not bother the staff and probably making it all worse.  Dead weight is annoying but at least with enough people and the right equipment you can get them positioned.  Wakeful people tend to fight or figit even when they don't mean to!

Wow, cannot imagine being out for six hours.
Lol, my surgery was at 8:10am, I was on Facebook by 11

Quote from: Eveline on March 12, 2015, 09:54:57 PM
If you asked me a couple of years ago, I would have said "Are you kidding? Of course I want to be asleep."

However, since then I've had a couple of very scary and uncomfortable experiences waking up from general anesthesia. And some weird, lingering mental effects for a couple of days after.  :o

So now I'm kind of freaked out by going under. If a nerve or spinal block and light sedation is an option, I'll take it...

When I had my orchi done the sense of termporal dislocation when I woke up in the recovery room really scared me.  Somehow I had a blank space of time in my memory without sensation of any kind as well as total absence of self.  Fortunately the sensation wore off about a half an hour later, but it has really put me off the idea of having a general anesthetic at any time in the future.

My SRS was 8 hours and Chett had to work hard to get the results he's achieved so I am sure being asleep and not having to see him stressing was a good thing

Hugs

Sorcha  ;D

8 hrs? my gosh that's a long time to be open.

3.5 hours was bad enough for me. although I can now say post operatively that I'm glad I was completely out, although I wish I wasn't as far under as i was only for the sake of not having the side effects that I had with whatever I was on.

when I was growing up I wouldn't let the dentist numb me up when he pulled or drilled in my teeth or did fillings because I was terrified of the needle so I would just sit there and take it which I think helped me develop a high pain tolerance.  Today I could still sit there and take it will little issue but I'm not scared of the needle anymore so I let the dentist numb me up and I think I would apply the same logic to surgery and let the doctor numb me up and turn on the horizontal time accelerator because I don't want to be awake for that.

I enjoy watching myself get stitches and tattoos etc. I'm a bit body curious. It isn't morbid but more about recognizing the materiality of the human husk. It reminds me to be thankful that mine (my body) works and that I am lucky to be alive.

That being said, no, I would not want to be awake for any major or lengthy surgery. Although watching that thing get cut up and made right would be cathartic. I suppose if there was video I'd watch that.

I wouldn't recommend it. I had my chest done awake with a local, and even though my surgeon was great, I had nightmares about it for months. They put a drape up to you can't see what they are doing, so needles weren't an issue. What was an issue was the sensation of my body being lifted off the table by my chest tissue. It didn't hurt exactly, but it was distressing. I remember thinking that I wished they would wait to do the other side. My surgeon was attentive, and would keep looking over the drape. if he saw any hint of pain, he would put in more local.

I have a peripheral nerve stimulator to help me deal with my migraines, and have had several procedures to get the leads where they need to be. I used to have it done partially awake. They would put me out, get the leads to  where they thought they should be, then wake me up to check if I was getting the electrical pulses. I would never remember it afterwards. Then, one time i had a different anesthetist, and he gave me no sedative or medication for pain. The surgeon put a little local when the lead went in and started screwing the lead in. The lead was encased in a sixteen gauge needle, and after about 15 minutes of using a screwing motion, I couldn't stand it anymore and lied and said it was in the right place. By then, nurses had left the room because they couldn't stand watching it. It was literally torture. That was when I learned that  the anesthesiologist controls what they give you and not the Dr. I've never let anyone do anything awake since then. I know it didn't have to do with my transitioning, but knowing what I do now, I think it would be a mistake.

sam1234

Hi,

Yes i have  while having  major surgerys , some of us can close our body right down and go cold as , i did and had to,   the  lady incharge of anisetic said you are as cold as ice , and the temps were high , i told her yeap , my breathing was less than one in ten you normaly take and slow , the anisetic came up to far so i had no movement and could not speak after just my breathing . other wise one would go into panic so i was prepared for as much as i could if some thing happened ,it did so the reason i shut myself down ,

2 or so hours  not nice i can tell you yet i knew what to do and just did it,

Try having 7 or more needles one after the other trying to find a vein , 18 all told i had, for all the surgerys  and epidural just as well my pain threshold is extream and i can take it  other wise like i know with one person  just cant handle needles at all . any pain and goes to hyper .

...noeleena...