Anesthesia Brings Out the Best in Me

I have no filter, and that is especially true when I am sick. Turns out I'm a loon when medicine, doctors, or hospitals are involved. And kind of a jerk.

When I was four years old I had pneumonia and the nurse was struggling to get an IV in my arm. I was screaming in Japanese and my parents could not understand what I was saying (one of the many joys of third culture parenting). They asked the nurse what I was saying and all she would say was, "All I feel comfortable repeating is that she is very, very angry."

When I was eight I was in the hospital for an unidentified seizure disorder and I ran around the room screaming, "I love this place! I get to play all day and people always bring me presents! BEST DAY EVER!!"

At thirteen I was told that I would need headgear and I threw a full on, on the floor screaming temper tantrum that I'm pretty sure insulted my dentist's competency and possibly his mother (as a side note I did not ever wear headgear).

At fifteen I had my first colonoscopy and as I was coming out of anesthesia I flung myself off the bed, grabbed the nurse, and screamed, "DO YOU LOVE JESUS?!?" Luckily, she did, because I'm pretty sure my technique needed some refining.

I had my appendix out at sixteen, and fun fact, when you have appendicitis they test for it with a CT scan with contrast. The contrast is not put in your veins, but up your bum. Ick. As I was laying on the table clenching with all my might, I turned to the tech and said, "is this really what you do for a living? I bet you get real tired of butts."

Eighteen years-old, after having a surgery on my leg, I groggily convinced the poor nurse they had operated on the wrong leg. They hadn't.

After I had my tonsils out when I was twenty (I enjoy getting rid of superfluous organs) I was asked what my pain was on a scale from 1 to 10. I hacked and cackled about it not being a 10 because I hadn't broken my femur (five thousand bonus points if you know why I said that) and then got incredibly cranky when no one got my joke.

Last year, I was in the emergency room for an ovarian cyst and a resident walked in (you can tell from the manic, bright-eyed smile and the crappy shoes) and I put my hand up and said "nope. No. Go get a real doctor. Nope. No."

Maybe one day I won't act like a crazy person when I'm at the hospital. But where's the fun in that??