A few years back, Steve Huber broke his nose and needed surgery. As the fog of anesthesia lifted, he was confused about why several nurses were laughing.
“They said ‘While you were under, you were telling Rodney Dangerfield jokes,’” said Erdelen. “They said I told one where Rodney said that his wife likes to talk while she’s making love. Last night she called from a Holiday Inn.”
Following surgery, a fireman tried to convince nurses that he sold life insurance. To dead people. A surgical patient tried to convince his doctor there was a giraffe standing behind him. The doctor looked just in case. After oral surgery a teenager tasted blood in her mouth and started crying because she didn’t want to become a vampire.
Marriage proposals, singing and other unusual behavior are all in a day's work for dentists, surgeons, nurses and anesthesiologists.
“We get hit on a lot when people are waking up from anesthesia,” said Dr. Marybeth Huber, a St. Louis anesthesiologist who recalled a patient serenade. “The whole way from the operating room to the recovery room he was singing the lime and the coconut song. ‘Put the lime in the coconut, put them both together.’ I have been asked if I was an angel as someone was waking up.”
Her reply?
“Of course. Don't I look like it?”
Thanks in large part to cell phone cameras, videotaping anesthetized patients has produced countless comic videos, where dazed and confused often leads to hysterically funny.
In a Facebook post, Meg Mitchell said her husband did it his way, singing Frank Sinatra songs during his heart stent procedure. If you’re wondering what’s going on, it’s called disinhibition: a temporary loss of inhibitions caused by an outside stimuli.
“They get disinhibition,” said anesthesiologist Dr. Josh Ferguson. “Like if you were to drink alcohol or some other medication, but this makes them forget that they’re saying that.”
Despite the unintended humor, anesthesiology is a highly complicated and specialized aspect of medicine. It plays a significant role in pain control, anxiety reduction and patients having no memory of their surgery.
“I put them to sleep and by the end of the day I’ve woken them up, we’ve fixed their problem and it’s very gratifying,” said Dr. Huber.
“We try to keep it as serious as we can, but it can get humorous at times after surgery,” said Dr. Ferguson. “And sometimes they get a funny video out of it.”
