I was awake for nearly my entire wisdom tooth surgery.
The fucking asshole did not seem to understand that a high opiate tolerance means that I require a fuckload more opiates (I was on Suboxone at the time, although I had taken a break from it for several days by using the lowest possible dosage of hydrocodone and oxycodone I could take without withdrawling). They put me out using a combination of propafil, midazolam, and demerol.
It was the pain that woke me up, because the dosage of demerol was insufficient when up against my opiate tolerance. But, instead of giving me the demerol I needed, they kept shooting me up with more midazolam, which would put me out for like a minute or two, after which I would wake up screaming "emmmerallll" to no avail, totally hopeless and experiencing some of the worst pain of my life as I can both feel and hear the dentist using a drill to grind my bottom wisdom tooth into a pulp so that it can be suctioned out later. Holy fuck. UOENO.
When the surgery was done, I just walked off the table without stumbling. I was barely buzzed anymore. Apparently, it was the first time they had ever had a patient wake up, and they were bemused by the fact that I was able to walk off of the operating table of my own power, without so much as stumbling. I was practically sober (even though I did not, at the time, have any tolerance to benzos, I have a penchant for metabolizing them very quickly).
Anyways, before somebody retorts with it, breaking through the Suboxone was not a problem. I had already been on other opioids for three or four days in preparation for the fact that the anesthesia I would undergo involved a demerol injection. As a favor to me (I made him aware that I was an opiate dependent with a very high tolerance), he shot me up with the demerol first so I could get the fuck out of the withdrawls I was experiencing, which was nice, but he fucked that all up by giving me the wrong fucking drug over and over again. I had enough midazolam in my system, I was on propafil for fucksake (although it could be that 30 minutes had already passed before I woke up the first time), I needed demerol and the guy just would not listen to me.
I'm still mad. One of the most painful experiences of my life. Not the most painful, but top 3 for sure. The good news is, I was never really in serious pain after the surgery. The dosage of opiates I was able to acquire was adequate, and I went back on my suboxone two days after the surgery with no problems. So, at least that worked out.
