The power of our drugs - an anecdotal story
Nov 26th, 2007 by Terry
Not that long ago, my husband had a colonoscopy done at the institution where I work. It was a no-brainer decision for him to have it done there - I know and work with the members of both the gastroenterology and anesthesiology departments, so my husband and I had a certain comfort level with who his care providers would be. All went smoothly, as expected and hoped for, and when he was finished, I went to his bedside.
“Hi babe! How ya feelin’?”
“I feel high. And good!”
“How’d everything go?”
Under his breath and out of the side of his mouth, he muttered, “I’ll tell you later.”
Blink.
Blink, Blink.
Well, that certainly grabbed my attention! When your husband tells you something like that, the words echo in the auditory canals for more than several minutes, and when they finally land in your frontal lobe, they don’t leave. It was all I could think about!
He recovered quickly from his anesthetic (straight Propofol), was spoken to by his doctor and given his discharge instructions by the nurses. As we were walking to the parking lot, my curiosity was clearly burning a hole into my skull, and I had to know what he wanted to tell me that needed to be deferred to LATER.
“So,” I asked him, half of me not wanting to hear something bad, “what did you want to tell me later?”
“Duh, nothing,” he said matter-of-factly, as if . . . what in the world was I talking about?
“You told me you wanted to tell me something later,” I reminded him, now anxious to hear this juicy tidbit of information.
“I did?”
This is the power of Propofol, and why it is sometimes affectionately called “milk of amnesia” in my business. We still laugh about this, and to this day, he has no idea what he wanted to tell me later. Maybe it’s better that way?
Maybe he wanted to tell you he had to um…….
fart (giggles)
OMG that is fffffunny! You should have bent down and got a rough draft. Now I’m dying of curiosity. By the way, I tagged you. (check my blog)
First off, interesting blog! I enjoy reading your entries
Second. it’s funny to think your husband really doesn’t remember a thing … isn’t it propofol that can make you have erotic dreams? ;o)
Third, because we’re on the subject, I’m really interested in knowing the use of propofol for c-scopes (re: me MSIII who had an anesthesia placement all summer and really really liked it. also, I’m an IBDer who doesn’t like versed). Does it work better than versed + fentanyl? And can it be administered by a GI?! Is it given through a pump?
Keep up the nice blog!
Mah, Propofol and colonoscopies are like peas and carrots, as Forrest Gump would have said. They were made for each other. A much better anesthetic, IMO, than versed and fentanyl. Why? Quick on, quick off. No nausea/vomiting. Great amnestic. Very easily titratable. I never use a pump, just give squirts. I usually start off with about 30-50 mg. and then titrate 10-20 mg. throughout the case, for however long it may take. Of course, as with any anesthetic, all patients must be monitored (EKG, BP, oxygen, SPO2), and the drug must be delivered by someone who knows how to read and interpret all the monitors’ data, handle a possibly compromised airway, and any other unexpected events that giving an anesthetic drug may incur. I know that this drug is given by GI docs, and their nurses, and it is called conscious sedation, but if it were MY colonoscopy or anyone I care about’s, I would have it delivered by the more competent hands of an anesthesia provider.
Thank you so much for the info! Propofol is cool, people are out in just a few seconds… it amazes me every time! I *think* here (at least where I am in Canada) we would need an anesthesist to use propofol … I’m not sure I’d let my GI intubate me if it was required anyway (she’s used to putting tubes in the oesophagus, not the trachea
).
Well, thanks again!
Like I already commented under your latest post….I lurrrrvvvve propofol!!! As soon as the administrations starts, I wave nighty night to the anesthesiologist and out I go! I wake up quickly afterwards, acting like a drunk and all giggly (just a wee bit dizzy too), but it very quickly dissipates and I’m feeling normal again.
god help you if you trust everything that happened to you under ine influence of propofol……………….