The most hellish,nightmarish and perfectly awful thing that ever happened to you

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Since the advent of cordless phones, my best friend and I spend most days on the phone together all day. We talk and do housework, talk and sew, talk and holler at the kids.

One such day we had been at it for a few hours when my friend said, “Stu (her 4 year old) is crying, I wonder whats going…OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD!!! BUNNYMAMA!!! OH MY GOD!!!..” In the background I could hear Stuart crying in a strange, screamy sort of way.

She managed to tell me the dog had attacked him. And he was bleeding very badly.

I couldn’t drive at that time, so I woke my brother and sent him racing to her house. My friend, in her paniced state, hung the phone up, so I had no idea what was going on til an hour or so later when my brother returned home.

The family dog had attacked Stu and torn the flesh away from the bone over one eye and across his forehead. It gives me shivers just typing that. The house afterward looked like someone had been murdered and drug around a bit.

Stu had surgery to repair the damage. Something like 57 stitches. The scars were awful, but now they are fading really well. And, suprisingly, he’s not afraid of dogs.

I hope to never hear anyone else scream like my friend did that day. But, I tell you, I’ll always remember the sound of her doing it.

22

  1. Mom’s lingering death.

  2. Dad’s gradual insanity and death.

  3. Getting stuck under a waterfall and not knowing if anything would be sent down for me to latch onto, or if I would be able to grab it.

23

I have to give my vote of confidence and support to Stoidela. My girlfriend was in for exploratory abdominal surgery and probable resection of the pancreatic ducts. She had been prepped and had been placed under the general anaesthesia and painted in Betadine and the target area was surrounded by draping when she muttered, “bad idea” and tried to sit up and leave the table. Scared the hell out of the surgeon.

Obviously something had gone a little bit wrong with the anaesthesia protocol, but that’s the whole point, isn’t it? It is a tricky art; different people react differently, and the dose that works on one person stops too many vital functions in another and kills them, and leaves a third cognizant of their surroundings and circumstances.

24

Stoid:

I’ve read your experience, and seen your email. I was neither condescending nor unsympathetic in my previous post, and I stand behind what I said earlier.

My friend is an OB/Gyn surgeon, and the reported incidence of recall under anesthesia seems highest under emergency Caesarian sections (which he performs,) and heart bypass surgery (which he does not.)

I have reason to beleive that he is an excellent and caring surgeon, and he has made some effort to understand this phenomenom.

First, the nature of anesthesia is such that the brain is not completely “turned off,” and the body not completely paralyzed. The brain after all controls things like breathing, and heartbeat, both of which need to be maintained.

Also, there is evidence to suggest that patients under anesthesia respond to auditory stimuli. This is not surprising, as most people retain some hearing even while sleeping. Hearing is a rather deep brain function, and it is not desirable or prudent to put somebody under to the point where it would be suppressed.

Recall is usually suppressed by an amnesiac.

At any rate, you are at a severely altered state when you are under General Anesthesia, and by definition are not a reliable witness as to your experiences.

Various forms of central nervous sytem dysfunction, hallucination, and delirium are common with general anesthesia.

You had a horrible and terrifying experience. Nothing I’ve said denies that. It is even possible that your experience results from flawed anesthetic technique.

The nature of anesthesia means that it is unlikely in the extreme if not impossible that you were truly conscious or lucid during the surgery.

You simply thought you were after the fact. As far as you are concerned, this amounts to the same thing.

Put another way, the goal of anesthesia in modern medicine is to facilitate surgery with minimum discomfort and pain to the patient. By any criteria, it failed in your case.

25

I have to agree with Stoidela and praise her post, even though I am not entirely sure which side I believe in this. I certainly agree that it seems to be very possible, based on what I have read in the past from other (reputable) resources.

I will only say that I think, Stoidela, that you imply a bit too much that doctors are willfully lying with respect to their handling of claims of awareness during surgery. I would like to see some evidence that in fact it is a pattern of lying, rather than simply doctors perhaps relying a bit too much on what they are taught, as opposed to listening to patients. I live with, and know a great many doctors, all of whom if they believed for a minute that a patient would be aware during a surgery would be horrified to hear of it.

Many of them have been in for surgery themselves, after all.

26

Probably the two worst were when my son had his legs operated on and came out of the anesthetic blue. Everyone was racing around but not telling us anything and he was getting bluer and bluer as the seconds past.

The second definitely was watching my mom fight for her life with breast cancer. It’s painful to watch someone you love suffer so much.

27

Moderator’s Notes: Stoidela, Scylla, while I find nothing offensive in any post made by either of you, I will make the suggestion that MPSIMS is not the proper forum to continue this line of discussion. You both know where to find Great Debates should you wish to continue this inquiry rationally, which frankly, I think, could make a fantastic GD topic.

Thank you.

28

Unclebeer:

Roger, Wilco.

29

I just think that stoid went a little overboard calling the guy ignorant, but otherwise I’ll agree with her. The reason I say my first part is because he is someone directly associated with the field, and he will have had experiences with it. And who’s to say he isn’t right? I’ll bet the experience isn’t as crystal clear as you might think, but I do understand that it was a big experience in your life, so I don’t want you to think I might be calling you a liar. It’s sort of like going for reasonable doubt.

Personally, I believe stoid, but I’m not going to completely discredit the other theory. There seems a lot of weight backing both sides.

30

I guess that hijack is over now, but I’d just like to add that I have read about many claimed cases of this phenomenon and many are VERY difficult to repute.
For instance people have described happenings, even conversations, that went on in the room while they were supposedly not aware of anything around them. A few have managed to give small signs to attempt to alert people.

In any case, it’s a well documented phenomenon, if a little controversial (touchy) in the medical community these days.

As for what the worst thing that ever happened to me was?

My best friend in the world drowned himself on purpose and I watched them drag him out of the water, that was actually just last july. I’ll NEVER get over that, and I frankly don’t want to.

— G. Raven

31

I don’t know if I should write my reply to this but here it goes, and when I’m done I’ll decide whether or not to press the post reply button. About twenty-two years ago I went to bed one night. My husband(I was later divorced) was at work, the 11PM to 7AM shift. Unknown to me I had left the front door unlocked, although it was closed. A male intruder entered and I was, shall we say, awakened. After he left I called my aunt’s house(folks were out of town) and she called the cops. I had to go to the hospital for an exam( I had remembered not to bathe) and then had to go through the police questioning. Turns out I was the third victim of a creep who went on to(the police think) six victims. It was my experience that finally got an announcement(sans my name) in the newspaper that the creep was on the loose and women should be careful. As I said, I was later divorced from my husband, but one good thing I can remember about him is how nicely he acted afterwards, never blaming me for negligence or acting as if I was somehow to blame. I have learned to live with it, but not a day goes by that it doesn’t, at some point, cross my mind.

32

Baker, it wasn’t nice of your husband, it was the right thing to do. You say it almost as though you felt you should have been held accountable. What happened to you was not your fault in any way whatsoever, not even a little bit. And I’m sorry it is still so much with you. :frowning:

stoid

33

I’m not interested in turning it into a debate. It isn’t a debate in the medical community, I can’t see why we should turn it into one here.

It happens, it’s proved and admitted by the medical community, and it happened to me. It sucked.

If you are going for surgery, talk to your anesthesiologist. You should anyway, because they are the ones that really hold your lives in their hands. Make sure you feel as confident in them as you do in your doctor. (In my case it was a “nurse anesthetist” - I tried to get him reprimanded or fired or something, and I learned later that he was no longer working at that clinic. Remember it happened to three women all on that one day. The guy was a fuckup.) Oh yeah, that was one more doctor I talked to about it (I talk to every doctor I meet about it. I’m a little obsessive on the topic.) - my father’s anesthesiologist after my dad came out of surgery. Except for the doctors that took care of me that day, no doctor I’ve ever spoken with has ever claimed it was a bad dream. They all acknowledged it.

stoid

34

Cecil on waking anesthesia.

Just FYI.

35

Thanks! I should have thought to check. And considering where we are, I believe that settles the matter.

stoid

36

I made the mistake of meeting a guy I’d met on the internet. 95% of the people I talk to online, I know from real life first.I’m not real big on the chatting with random strangers thing. So he wanted to meet, out of careless stupidity, I agreed. I drove up to where he was staying, about 45 minutes away. We met, he took me back to his hotel room. We were getting along good, he appeared to be normal. He kissed me, I kissed back. And then he hit the insanity point. He grabbed my arms, tied them behind me, and tied my feet to the chair legs. I was kicking and protesting, but he was a lot stronger than me. He shoved his dick in my mouth, and forced me to give him a blowjob. He told me he’d kill me if I didn’t cooperate. I was sobbing. When he went to rape me, he put a bag over my head, because apparently lack of oxygen makes orgasms stronger or something. I couldn’t breathe, I was so terrified he’d leave me for dead in that cheap motel room, and no one would ever find me, or know where I was. He finally took the bag off, after 5 minutes or so. He moved me to the bed, tied me to the bedpost, and proceeded to jerk himself off on top of me. When he came, he covered my face, my chest, and my hair. He took pictures. I was begging him not to leave me for dead, he just laughed,and finally untied me. I threw my clothes on halfway, grabbed my stuff, and ran fo my car.

Driving home, I was sobbing, and I had no idea where I was. So I pulled into a gas station, and asked the attendant for directions. She kept asking if I was okay, and I said yes. I went in the bathroom, and looked in the mirror, and almost screamed. My bra was hanging out of my tank top, my shorts were barely on. My hair was a mess. Dried cum covered my face, and my eye was slowly becoming infected. Plus, my face was all splotchy from the crying. I looked like shit. I had to stop for directions 3 more times before I finally figured out how to get home. Once I did, I just stayed in my room and cryed. When my mom asked what was wrong, I told her I boke up with my boyfriend. To this day, she still doesn’t know what happened, although several of my close friends know the story. For the most part, they were very supportive, and I couldn’t have made it through that ordeal without any of them. But when they pushed me to press charges, I just couldn’t do it. I just wanted to forget it ever happened, and they couldn’t accept that.

That was a year ago today. It took me a long time to move on afterwards, even now I’m still not completely better. I haven’t had a normal relationship since, I’m terrified of getting involved with people I don’t know real well. It was about 8 months before I could be with a guy again, and that was my best friend. I’ve known him for years, and I knew he wasn’t out to hurt me in any way. It took a lot for me to make that step…at least he understood why I wasn’t all there that night, when the panic started setting in.

The fear that I felt when he put that bag over my head…I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Nobody deserves to have to go through that. Nobody.

37

Pammipoo my heart goes out to you! What a perfectly horrifying story!

It sounds like this has had a devastating effect on you, Pammipoo…I strongly, strongly urge you to seek some counseling over this. It is not good for you to have faced and dealt with this entirely alone. You don’t have to tell your mom, and you don’t have to press charges…but please, seek out a trained, sympathetic ear to listen.

All the best to you.

stoid

38

Pammipoo, DO LIKE STOID SAYS!!!Friends are good for listening, but really, sometimes what is needed is a trained ear that doesn’t know you personally, someone who can listen more objectively. PLEASE, PLEASE come back and say you will do like she says. I will dedicate my evening prayers tonight to you.

39

Pammi,
Stoid is right, as usual. Talk to someone. Get some peace of mind. Charges would be best, but if you can’t, you can’t.

I’m meeting an online friend TOMORROW. I’ve warned her away from this thread, at least for now. I’m not like that, but I don’t want her scared.

40

…in high school I was forced to lip synch to Weird Al’s “I’m Fat” in front of the entire student body. They made me dance. shudder