Some time ago, just two weeks before high school began, I underwent my first surgical procedure. When it was first mentioned a year earlier, I laughed and brushed it off. As the actual date approached, this attitude turned into complete fear and panic.

The morning of the surgery, I was required to take a variety of pills. This had not been one of my strengths in the past, and my anxiety displayed itself. My throat closed up and through the pain and slobber, I forcefully choked down the pills one by one. We then left hurriedly to make up for the lost time.

The room I entered was noticeably chilly. The dental assistant covered me with a wooly blanket and attached a few sensors to my body. Soon my erratic heartbeat was echoing through a small machine. Noticing my jitteriness was causing the beat to be irregular, I tried to relax and control it. This is how I learned that attempting to remain calm is one of the best ways to induce complete panic.

Soon, my parents were escorted out of the room and in walked a nurse. She placed a rubber mask gently above my nose. “Take deep breaths,” she requested. I sucked the gas into my lungs, which curiously smelled of cinnamon. It was the process of putting me to sleep that intrigued me. I had been plagued by insomnia in the past, and was ready to experience a quick sleeping transition. This operation seemed to be the perfect time to investigate the mysteries of sleep and consciousness. I continued to think these thoughts, avoiding the ones concerning post-op complications.

My pounding heart rate continued to fill the room. Afraid that the doctor might assume me to be asleep and begin operating, I kept my eyes locked open and fixed on the fluorescent lights above. In retrospect, that fear does not seem particularly realistic, but nothing that day seemed realistic to me.

Time dragged by, as it does, and I found myself gazing at the same blurry lights, trying everything I could to speed up the sleep process. I wondered if the anesthesia was taking longer than normal. Thoughts of worry flooded my drowsy mind. I inhaled frantically and began to experience a sense of paralysis. I focused all my strength into moving my foot a bit to the left, just to prove that I could. It was then that I realized that my fear was of the unknown, a fear of the out of control. I had absolutely no way of knowing what was going to happen.

The time arrived when I could not stare at the garish fluorescent lights for more than a few seconds before they would begin to blur and twist into some dizzying phantasmagoria, so I let my eyes rest. A smile began to trickle onto my face. This laughing gas was more potent than I had anticipated. I thought to myself how ridiculous the fact that I was smiling was, which made me grin even more uncontrollably. Ha! What a perplexing vicious cycle. Realizing my attempts at suppressing the amusement were futile, when the nurse asked, “Do you like that stuff?” I nodded giddily. Gradually, my worries and thoughts slipped away as I entered a world of pure sensation.

As I lay in my private darkness, I could pick up the footsteps of the doctor’s entrance. With my eyes shut and my body buzzing with numbness, my remaining sense of hearing was amplified. A tourniquet tightened around my upper arm, and I felt a few cold swipes of liquid. “Now, I want you to squeeze this as hard as you can,” he explained. In my hand was a small, rubber object. I felt the four lumps on the top and four prongs at the base. A tooth. I smiled to myself at my ability of recognition. “Give it a big squeeze.” I followed. There was a prick of pain amid the tingliness of my arm, infinitesimally tiny and distant. The doctor administered the intravenous injection. Now I finally surrendered; it was useless to fight or fear something out of my hands. “You’re doing great,” he continued. “The nitrous oxide makes it a lot easier.” The doctor’s words pierced the vast blankness of my sensations. Now I felt nothing. I was not there. I was everywhere and nowhere and then—

I was sitting up in the seat, and the doctor was congratulating me on a successful operation. The assistants guided me out of the building, still in a zombielike trance. On the ride home, I began to become conscious of the fuzzy break in cognition that I had experienced, but I was too tired to give it much thought. Once home, I groggily swallowed a handful of pills and slept.

I originally believed my views on surgery to be founded upon common sense; I now know this to be far from the truth. Through this psychologically challenging event, I was able to fully appreciate the wonders of modern medicine, the diligence of my surgeon, and the true nature of my situation. Although my fears may have been overblown, all in all, I would still insist that this experience was no laughing matter.