After about an hour of poking and prodding and sticking me with huge needles apparently to punish me for calling them veterinary anaesthetists, they 'found' a vein with the help of the ultrasound machine. How much use would they have been during World War 2 in a field hospital? F.A.
I then demanded my 'something to keep me calm' and they informed me it was TOO LATE, that Doctor was getting fed up with waiting for my veins to appear, and that they'd be putting me under right NOW and that's all I recall of that episode.
I woke up with no pain at all, just a nasty tight feeling, like wearing a Size 10 bra when actually you are Size 16. Which a lot of people do, just to kid themselves.
I felt OK. A nurse in recovery said, "We'll give you something for the pain."
I said "No thanks, I've got no pain."
She said "Of course you have", and jabbed me with something. I think the Chinese anaesthetists told her to give me a hard time and treat me like they would a wildebeeste at the zoo.
"What was that?" I asked.
"You wouldn't know what it is, now put your oxygen mask back on."
"I want to know what it is first."
"Endone," she replied. "But you wouldn't know what that is."
"What's the active ingredient in that?" I demanded to know.
"It's oxycodone."
"F***!" I exclaimed, knowing that people just out of anaesthetic often say that, even Baptists carrying Bibles, as they can't help themselves.
"Hillbilly heroin! You've given me Hillbilly heroin,
and I didn't want it!"
The nurse glared at me, not caring.
"Oxycodone," I told her angrily, throwing off my breathing apparatus, while my blood pressure dropped and my breathing slowed and I began to die, "is an opioid analgesic synthesised from opium-derived thebane, developed in 1916 in Germany, and no doubt used to bump off a large number of useless feeders in the years to come."
She glared at me and peered over her glasses to see if I was a for-real bogan from the Port town down south or just pretending.
"And where did you glean these amazing facts?" she asked.
"I did the first year of Medicine," I replied, "and I retained an interest in it. Biology, Zoology, Microbiology, Chemistry. You have killed me. I can't breathe. My diaphragm is becoming progressively paralysed."
"Put your oxygen mask back on!" she said, forcing it over my nose. "You will be fine if you keep that on."
"An oxygen mask IS ONLY ANY GOOD IF YOU ARE STILL BREATHING, AND I AM BARELY BREATHING," I informed her. "You have overdosed me. How much oxycodone have you given me?"
She went away and left me to suffocate.
It was terrifying. I just knew that if I closed my eyes and fell asleep, that would be the end of me. I had to stay awake and consciously say to myself, "Breathe in, breathe out," just like a person who has quadriplegia and is learning how to breathe without the iron lung. At times when I forgot and drifted off, I woke with a start, gasping for breath.
I hoped the effects of the Hillbilly Heroin wouldn't last too long. I hoped they had written down somewhere that in case of near-death, they were to call a Bishop, because I am a very important Catholic. I carry a card that says that in my handbag.
Somehow I managed to stay awake until I got back to the ward.
"We'll bring you some more Endone for your pain," said a nurse. "NO," I replied. "I DO NOT WANT ANY MORE OXYCODONE. YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL ME. I DO NOT HAVE A DRUG HABIT AND I DO NOT HAVE ANY TOLERANCE TO OPIOIDS."
She left me alone, thank God. The Hillbilly Heroin wore off. There really wasn't any pain, just this awful tight feeling, and a prickly feeling where the blood drainage tubes were stuck in my sides.
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