If the patient's medical problems are complex and the surgery is challenging, the flight through anesthesia can be a stormy ride. Some procedures are quick and less painful and require less anesthesia. Some require more. When surgeons touch the bowel, for instance, it sends a pain message hundreds of times stronger than the worst stomach cramps. It's not uncommon for an anesthetized patient to buck on the table.
Anesthesiologists administer drugs that bring about hypnosis, paralysis and pain relief.
They cause a patient's body to fall into a potentially fatal slumber. The anesthesiologist uses a ventilator to breathe for the person and controls everything from the amount of oxygen in the blood to the heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. But determining the depth of anesthesia has traditionally been an imprecise science. While one drug causes a patient like Gilbert to be unaware, another is used to paralyze him during the operation. If he began to wake up, it would be hard for the medical team to know, because he couldn't move.