I was never legally dead or anything, but I remember the doctors being in a panic when I woke up from my Umbilical hernia repair surgery.

I'm not a little guy, I'm 6'3" and 250lbs. This made the doctor figure that since I'm as big as I am he'd give me the maximum dosage of morphine that was allowed. If he told me before the surgery that he was going to do that? I'd have smiled and said "Sure!".

When I woke up from the surgery I was stoned out of my skull and the doctors were in my face telling me to breathe. I didn't understand why they were telling me this, I felt amazing, serene, everything was awesome... Unfortunately neither myself, nor the doctors, knew that I was sensitive to morphine. It collapsed both my lungs and I wasn't breathing on my own. They were running around grabbing equipment and whatever they needed to keep me alive and I remember thinking it looked like a Benny Hill episode that my father watched when I was a kid. I could even imagine the theme song. If I could have laughed, I would have.

The fun part of all of this was the fact that my wife was waiting in the waiting room (obviously) and after an hour past the expected time of me being out had gone by, she was inquiring into where I was. All she kept getting was "He's fine, he's just taking a bit longer"

6 hours later (9 hours total so far), I'm finally coming off my high and holy hell did my chest and stomach hurt. I remember clearing my throat and realizing that with stomach surgery, one should do as little as possible to flex my abs. they had me hooked up to the usual array of equipment and my lungs had finally re-inflated enough that I was breathing on my own.

This was about the point in time my wife told me she was having a hissy-cow in the waiting room because they still hadn't told her anything. They apparently had security there keeping an eye on her as she was freaking out. Didn't help that one of the orderlies came running out asking her for my Asthma inhaler and vanishing with it. They never even gave me any from my inhaler.

All in all, my 2 hour day surgery turned into a 5 day stay. Gladly though, since when they scanned my lungs they discovered that I had Sarcoidosis. Knowing I have it explained a whoooole lot of little problems I was having.