Last Updated on: 10th November 2016, 09:03 am
I read about this story, and it freaked me out, and continues to freak me out. This woman went in for a colonoscopy. She was put in a twilight state, that is she was partially sedated. She woke up with semen on her face. The doctor, Aniruddha Chitale, was found guilty. His sentence is disgustingly light, considering he did this to four different women, 180 days in jail and 10 years’ probation? Give me a fucking break.
Anyway, this whole thing freaks me out for a lot of reasons. First, there was a nurse present while this was going on. Why couldn’t she have done something to stop it? I don’t expect her to become wonderwoman and beat this guy down, but I’m sure she could get security or call for some more help. That’s, among other things, her job. That’s the reason they have extra people in the room. To make sure the patient is ok from medical complications, and for extra security for the patient. He did this to four different women. Were these four different nurses? Or does he have a buddy who just happens to turn a blind eye at the right time? I can’t find out that little detail.
Second, I had to have a colonoscopy, and believe me, you don’t remember anything from the time they start sedating you until…well…way afterwards. Here we go into long story ville. A couple of years ago, I was really really really sick, and nobody could figure out why. Since part of the being sick involved a lot of nausea and diarrhea, they decided to test me for everything. In that battery of tests was a scope into my stomach and my colon. Well, they told me they’re definitely doing the stomach, and they may do the other. Isn’t that fun? You don’t even know what’s going to happen.
I’d say the worst part was the stuff they make you drink the night before to clean you out. They call it “go lightly”. I want the inventor of Go Lightly to have a good chug-a-lug of his creation and tell me if that is an apt name. I’ll tell you it’s not. Ug. When they deliver you a 4-litre jug of this stuff and say “drink it all by midnight,” it tastes absolutely horrid, and you’re fighting over the bathroom you share with 2 other women because they have to go just as bad for different reasons, you’re going. Oh you’re going. But I would never call it lightly. I still remember the nurse saying, “Do you want a commode? You’re going to have to go fast and furious.” That’s one thing that’ll make me cry.
Then the time came for the big test. I was scared shitless, and afraid to do anything. I wanted to have a shower, but I didn’t quite know when they were coming for me, so was afraid to go ahead and do it. Plus I didn’t really know where the shower was. I knew where the john was, but had no idea about the shower. Then I didn’t know what they’d let me wear for this test. I had a pretty good idea they were doing both tests when they told me all I could wear was the gown. I had to take off everything metal. And then they wheeled me in. That was creepy. I was perfectly able to walk, but I had to be wheeled on a weird bed thing. The guy in the elevator really freaked me out. He said to me, “I’ve met you before.” I said “oh?” He said, “Yeah, last week, when you were in the ER…you had had your fill of emerge.” I just stared at him, dumbfounded. I couldn’t remember what I could have possibly said. I’m sure I would have been angry about the whole process of what happened the two times I went to the ER because of this crazy illness, I waited a few hours and was told to go home. But did I say it to this complete stranger? Hopefully not! Maybe I was on the cell phone home, saying I was coming home and nothing happened. Anyway, enough babble.
So I get there, and they’re hooking me up to all these machines, and sticking something weird on my nose for oxygen. I’m glad they were all women, because before I knew it, woosh, they were opening my gown and sticking things to my boobs, I guess to monitor my heart. To relax myself, I started playing games with my breathing to make the beeps change. I’m weird. Then they were trying to find a vein. They couldn’t find one, story of my life. I was starting to freak, starting to think I was going to have to do this without any drugs. Then an anesthesiologist came to help. He eventually got it in with a kids’ needle or something. As the sedative hit, I looked up at him, grinned, and said, “You rock!” There was a pause, and a British voice said, “Thank you!” I was told that he was beaming, and is very seldom told that he rocks. Then something was sprayed down my throat to numb it. I was told it will taste terrible. I think I said to her, “That’s terrible? Try Go Lightly!”
…and…there is a large chunk of time that is absent. Actually, it’s more like a camera flashes and someone tells me it’s hours later. But there is no lag. There is no sense that I have slept for a while. Even when I was in a car accident that gave me a concussion, I had the sense that time was passing. I just don’t have any recollection of a few days except for confused snatches of sounds and smells. But anyway. I was told before the test that I would be kept partially awake through this whole thing so they could ask me questions about pain and so on. I never expected complete amnesia of the time period. I thought I’d just feel stoned or something. Apparently, it’s written on my report that I was very talkative. Um what did they give me? Sedative, or truth serum? What exactly did I say to them? Was I a whiny baby? I’ll never know.
The next time I knew what time it was, it was about 2 in the afternoon and I had a slightly sore throat, a hoarse voice, and a need to repeat all my thoughts to the nurses and poor Steve, who got a very annoying phone call home. . Apparently, I told him in about six different ways that I was fine, the scope went ok, I don’t remember a thing, they made me take my favourite necklace off, I told the anesthesiologist he rocked after he was able to find a vein, I think mom and dad are coming home, or did they come home. But these thoughts all just kept coming in random order and it didn’t matter how many times he told me I’d said that before, I’d say it again! I remember asking the nurses, “Is it over? What time is it? Where’s mom? They’re going home…but how will they get in? They have my keys? What time is it? Is it over? Where’s mom and dad? what time is it? …” you get the idea. Then, mom and dad came back with my mail and my medicine, and this is where memory just becomes foggy. I remember trying to read a braille wedding invitation. I was reading the braille sideways. it made no sense, but I kept on reading it. I’d miss whole lines and just let my hand land on some braille and try and read it. I’m sure that was pretty funny to watch, because they knew what it said! They had the print, and what I was reading, well, wow it didn’t make sense.
But the point of this whole rambling mess is the period from the time they sprayed my throat to several hours later when I started repeating myself is non-existent for me. If someone told me what happened during that time, I would have to believe them because it’s gone for me. As much as I’m grateful for the lack of memory I have of the scope, as I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant, it was still a freaky experience to have a drug have the power to make me forget what happened to me for a time. Now I read the story of a sexual assault, and the freakiness of the whole thing amplifies to horror. A doctor could so easily get away with this. The patient wouldn’t remember, and if she didn’t wake up with semen on her face and get it swabbed, she wouldn’t have had a hope of proving it! I’d seen things like that happening to people on shows like Law and Order, but at the time I went in, I wasn’t worried, because there were a couple nurses in there, so I was sure no funny business was going to happen. But now that it has, all I can think is, what a thought! And, that could have been me! I’m so glad it wasn’t! But it could have easily been me.