The joy of French hospital food

I woke up in the wake-up room (salle de réveil). The clock on the wall said half past ten. I’d been out for a couple of hours. What lifted me to the surface was the sound of the wake-up team persuading someone to wake up who was absolutely refusing to do so. The entreaties increased in volume and urgency. Then I heard a male voice say, in English: ‘Wake up please, Mr Clarke.’ I nodded my sleepy head to show him that I was already there. The voice then asked me in French whether I was in pain and I answered in French that I was not. After that I listened with interest to the tug of war between the wake-up team advocating wakefulness and the patient refusing it.

The anaesthetist, I noticed, had added a delightful sedative to her narcotic mix, perhaps as a friendly treat. I once had radioactive needles inserted into my prostate gland while I was awake, but sedated by, among other things, I think, the date-rape drug Rohypnol.