Just a Bird

So the doctors on Monday, when I had an endoscopy, said to me, "Oh, it couldn't have been the anesthesia we're giving you that gave you nightmares after the last one." The last one being the one I had October 31, 2013.

And for the next three weeks I had the kind of dreams that make you wake up screaming and shaking.

But it was the same drug, propofol, which is now in the news again today because it is the same drug that allegedly killed Michael Jackson, and now there's some talk that Joan Rivers was under its influence, having an endoscopy herself, when she went into cardiac arrest.

It was no surprise to me Monday night when James woke me up as I was screaming. The dream was not necessarily a nightmare - apparently I was having a vocabulary crisis, needing someone to look something up, as best I can recall.

But last night - oh my. Last night I woke myself up screaming "Don't leave me!" and then sat there, shaking and sweating and trying very hard to find my way back to the world, after falling down the rabbit hole and into someplace Alice might have found familiar. It was a very long time before I was able to go back to sleep, and the dream and the drugged feeling has hung with me all morning.

I hate it when doctors disregard what I tell them, as if because it's not common, it can't be true. I have never fit the pattern of "normal" in health care and this doesn't make me weird, just unique. But that uniqueness shouldn't be discounted.

I will not allow this drug to enter my system again, if I can help it. Given that it's apparently ended the life of two celebrities, maybe everyone should rethink its use.