I just had, what I would consider a miraculous experience. I had surgery and I remember none of it. In the past the surgery would not have been possible, or would have caused a great deal of trauma and pain. As it is, I am almost pain free. While I was unconscious I had a parotidectomy. You can see a video of what that entails here. Warning though, it’s a pretty graphic video. Essentially I had a tumor in a saliva gland that was removed. The surgery is done under general anesthesia and done as an in-patient procedure meaning I spent the night for monitoring.
Anesthesia has to be one of our greatest inventions. It’s truly astounding. One second I am conscious talking to the doctor and her assistant, they tell me I should be falling asleep in a second. And a second later…nothing.
If that is what doctor assisted dying is like, count me in. What a beautiful way to go. The reason I likened it to MAID should be obvious. But if you are unaware it works like this, the aesthetician puts a mask on you with oxygen to saturate the blood cause one the drugs hit your system you stop breathing. They need to intubate you so that a machine can take over your breathing. No machine, you die. By giving you oxygen they saturate your blood giving themselves more time. There is a fascinating YouTube video here:
I am so grateful to the medical staff at Toronto General Hospital especially my surgeon Dr. Tzelnick who performed the parotidectomy. It was the sort of experience that reminds me how lucky we are in Canada to have such a great health care system. I know it’s not perfect but sometimes it can be miraculous.