Surgery
January 5 I had a minor surgery to repair a scar tissue obstruction in my urethra. Everything went extremely well, and I am now peeing much better. Where before it took me about 5 minutes every time I had to urinate - I had to force it out under pressure from my diaphragm, now it literally gushes out. It took some getting used to. In the days immediately after I removed the catheter, I was afraid the doctor had opened me up TOO much...my urine was coming out in a blade shaped stream about two inches tall! But it's modified somewhat and now I have a regular stream, albeit seemingly under firehose pressure.
Sorry to subject all my loyal readers to this TMI discussion of penile surgery, but I wanted to discuss my thoughts on the anasthetic I was put under during the surgery. It was general anasthesia (thank God!) but what was interesting was the fact that I was apparently given two forms of anasthesia - one was the good old knock-you-out stuff, but the other apparently kept me conscious but affected my memory of the experience. The anesthesiologist told me that there were parts of the surgery where the doctor needed to be able to have me do things under my own power.
This really strikes me as odd, and raises some questions in my mind. After my surgery, I truly did not remember anything from the time I was lying on the gurney breathing from the little mouthpiece until the time I was waking up on the gurney in the recovery room. But then if I was actually conscious during that time, did I feel pain? Because if I was feeling pain during that time, I don't believe (as wimpy as I am about pain) that the doctor would have been able to do anything. Maybe I was under local anasthetic as well as the memory-blocking stuff.
But if this memory-blocking stuff exists, is it used in other realms of life other than surgery? I doubt a situation like in the movie "Paycheck" would be possible, where the guy works for several months and then has his memory erased, but what about covert work, interrogations, etc.? I can imagine that it might be useful sometimes for operatives to interrogate a subject in such a way that he won't remember he's been interrogated.
Or an ethical dilemma often presented in movies...a rogue government group decides it needs to keep information from the president for the sake of national security. Well, how about setting up a situation where the president is told the information while under the influence of this drug, then before he forgets, he decides whether he needs to be told again when he will actually remember.
Bah. I'm stretching, I know. Oh well. Back to work.
Sorry to subject all my loyal readers to this TMI discussion of penile surgery, but I wanted to discuss my thoughts on the anasthetic I was put under during the surgery. It was general anasthesia (thank God!) but what was interesting was the fact that I was apparently given two forms of anasthesia - one was the good old knock-you-out stuff, but the other apparently kept me conscious but affected my memory of the experience. The anesthesiologist told me that there were parts of the surgery where the doctor needed to be able to have me do things under my own power.
This really strikes me as odd, and raises some questions in my mind. After my surgery, I truly did not remember anything from the time I was lying on the gurney breathing from the little mouthpiece until the time I was waking up on the gurney in the recovery room. But then if I was actually conscious during that time, did I feel pain? Because if I was feeling pain during that time, I don't believe (as wimpy as I am about pain) that the doctor would have been able to do anything. Maybe I was under local anasthetic as well as the memory-blocking stuff.
But if this memory-blocking stuff exists, is it used in other realms of life other than surgery? I doubt a situation like in the movie "Paycheck" would be possible, where the guy works for several months and then has his memory erased, but what about covert work, interrogations, etc.? I can imagine that it might be useful sometimes for operatives to interrogate a subject in such a way that he won't remember he's been interrogated.
Or an ethical dilemma often presented in movies...a rogue government group decides it needs to keep information from the president for the sake of national security. Well, how about setting up a situation where the president is told the information while under the influence of this drug, then before he forgets, he decides whether he needs to be told again when he will actually remember.
Bah. I'm stretching, I know. Oh well. Back to work.
posted by AppleJuiceFool | 6:44 AM
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