BOSTON, Nov. 24, 2003
Mid-Surgery Wake-Ups
Like most surgical patients, Weihrer’s anesthesia consisted of a cocktail of drugs: one to put her to sleep, a painkiller and a paralyzing agent. But when the paralytic is working, it’s impossible to speak or move.
ï Anesthesia Awareness
The brain monitor, which determines if the patient really is asleep, is called the Bis monitor. It’s made by Aspect Medical Systems of Newton, Mass.
ï Aspect Medical Systems
(CBS) Carol Weihrer’s nightmare began in 1998. Not while she was sleeping, but when she woke up. “I heard, ‘cut deeper, pull harder,’” she says.
She woke up in the middle of surgery to remove a damaged eye, and as Contributing Correspondent Dr. Mallika Marshall, of CBS-owned WBZ-TV reports, she could hear every word and feel and remember everything.
Like most surgical patients, Weihrer’s anesthesia consisted of a cocktail of drugs: one to put her to sleep, a painkiller and a paralyzing agent. But when the paralytic is working, it’s impossible to speak or move. “You have no control,” says Weihrer. “You can do nothing.” And therefore impossible to let the doctors know that the sleep agent isn’t working. She was, she says, absolutely afraid.
Now, Weihrer’s case is at the extreme end of the spectrum, but she’s not alone. In fact, recent statistics show that one to two out of every 1,000 surgical patients experience some level of awareness – that’s about a hundred patients a day.
“The problem of awareness can’t be denied,” says anesthesiologist Dr. Carl Rosow.
During surgery, Rosow uses a brain monitor, which he attaches to the patient’s forehead. “It takes the brain wave, which is a pretty unfriendly piece of information and turns it into a number,” says Rosow. It’s specifically designed to tell him whether a patient is asleep. But the majority of anesthesiologists have not yet embraced this technology. Partially, Rosow says, because the size of the problem has just come to light.
“We’ve made the presumption that a person who was really awake, especially if they were suffering pain, would surely show us,” says Rosow.
But Weihrer, who couldn’t do that, still suffers the trauma. She barely sleeps and is afraid to lie down. She’s been sleeping in a chair for more than five years, unable to go near a bed.
So Weihrer spends most of her time now running an Internet support group for other victims, most of whom, she says, don’t speak out for fear of being called crazy.
© MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/24/eveningnews/main585347.shtm
Up until the past year or so I too was afraid to tell anyone other than my husband about this.
In 1986 when my 2nd daughter was being born by C-section, I woke up during the surgery. Because of my spinal chord issues, they used general anesthesia rather than epidurals like they do now.
I tried to tell them, but couldn’t seem to do so. I felt them pull my daughter out of me.
14 months later when my 3rd baby was about to be born I was terrified of a repeat. My husband and I both tried to tell the doctors about what had happened but they dismissed us as if we didn’t know what we were talking about. Thankfully though, it did NOT happen again.
I’m just glad to know that there is SOMETHING being done about this finally… that SOMEONE is believing our stories!
AIM Trial: 19,576 patients were enrolled in this multi-center U.S. study. This study established that awareness with recall occurs in the U.S. at a rate of 1-2 cases per 1,000 patients receiving general anesthesia. Twenty million patients receive general anesthesia in the U.S. each year, suggesting that approximately 100 patients experience awareness with recall each operating weekday. Study findings were consistent with international research evaluating the incidence of awareness. (Lancet. 2000 Feb 26; 355(9205):707-11  & Br J Anaesth. 2000 Jan; 84(1):6-10.)