Rare, Less than 1 in 1000

The computer I'm typing this on is not mine, it's the office computer. The one that prints. The one that is used for everyone's school projects. Often, when I turn it on to work on something, someone has left open their work. If it looks interesting I read it. Today I found a lovely piece my mother wrote about when I gave birth to Sylvia.

I don't remember much about giving birth for two reasons: a) I have a horrible memory, and b) I nearly died, poisoned by the anesthesiologist. It's not something I've shared extensively because I never understood it, I couldn't explain what had happened. But my mom also left oven the wikipedia page on the dancers of Epidurals, where she had gone to get the medical terminology.

I've never looked it up to see how rare it is, or what might have happened differently. But there it was. I might not go looking for certain information, but I will never ignore it if it's staring me in the face.So here it is. This is what happened to me.

Catheter misplaced into the subarachnoid space (rare, less than 1 in 1000). If the catheter is accidentally misplaced into the subarachnoid space (e.g. after an unrecognized accidental dural puncture), normally cerebrospinal fluid can be freely aspirated from the catheter (which would usually prompt the anesthetist to withdraw the catheter and re-site it elsewhere). If, however, this is not recognized, large doses of anesthetic may be delivered directly into the cerebrospinal fluid. This may result in a high block, or, more rarely, a total spinal, where anesthetic is delivered directly to the brainstem, causing unconsciousness and sometimes seizures.

They gave me a total spinal. That doesn't sound like a fun thing, does it? I was unconscious for about 2 hours while I was in labor. At least I didn't get any seizures.