The last time I had anesthesia, I woke up and ran. I didn’t try to run away after my hysterectomy, thankfully, but because it didn’t happen that time? I was unprepared for it the next, as were the staff!
Obviously, me getting up and sprinting through the hallways in confused panic and terror is something that would not be very good for me post embolization.
Does anyone have experience with this? Do you wake up and bolt? What did your docs do? What can be done to prevent or manage this? No one could catch me or slow me down for a while, and it’s important to lie still for a few hours after embolization.
Have you been able to talk to your doctors or anyone in your clinical team about this? Are you possibly having severe reactions to anaesthetic drugs that they have not thought about?
Throughout my neurosurgical care, I have also experienced the ‘I have got to get out of here - now!’ surge of adrenaline fuelled stress reactions. This was significant at the outset of my own diagnosis. I didn’t properly understand at the time why it was so crippling but later on, the reasons began to fall into place and make sense. I learned who and what was causing my triggers in the hospital environment (sorry, I can’t stand that word ‘triggers’ either but I just have to use it for now) and the reason for them.
Don’t for one minute think that it is your fault or that you are the problem and don’t apologise for yourself. My thinking is that you have high sensitivity all round. My own experience is unfortunately that the doctors and nurses are unbelievably ignorant of trauma responses (how would they behave if they had to undergo neurosurgery themselves?!!) and I had to learn how to communicate to them, what this actually means. A patient support group was very helpful and encouraged me to think about what my needs actually were. For example, in the patient waiting area, I will tell the reception staff that I need to move to where there is a window and natural light, away from other people. When I meet a new clinician, I will ask for the lights to be turned off and the door to be left ajar.
These are little things, I know, but they help to keep me grounded. I accept that I will now always feel under threat whenever I have my hospital appointments but I tell my body that we working as a team and that we are going to look after each other (bit weird, I know). I also try and do something after my appointment to break any rumination that my brain does. This might be just 10mins in a gallery if I am really tired but wired, or even just a clip of my favourite movie.