Irrational Me vs. Rational Me

I have a little bit of paranoia going on. My knee has been bothering me for several months, so I finally bit the bullet and went to see a sport medicine doctor yesterday.  What I found out didn't surprise me:  my knee needs to be scoped.  Once I have this done, I will be relatively pain free, I won't have to ice my knee after running, I won't have to worry about swelling and that irritating, painful, involuntary locking of the knee, etc., etc.  It's an outpatient surgery, no crutches will be needed, and I can go back to activity as soon as I am pain-free.  Overall, this softening underneath my kneecap is not a big deal. However, I'm completely freaked out. 

In my entire life, I have never been put under with anesthesia or had any sort of surgery.  I delivered two babies without much medical intervention, which have been my only experiences as a patient in a hospital.  I know I am being completely wimpy.  My husband said, "You just need to accept the fact that you are going to be put under, and everything will be fine."  The rational side of me knows this will most likely be true. Unfortunately, it is the irrational side that is winning the mental toughness war raging in my head.

Irrational Me thinks back to a movie or Twilight Zone-like television show I saw in middle school or high school.  In this movie, some guy dies in horrible car-bicycle accident, and while he's pronounced dead, his brain is still processing everything that is going on around him.  I'm pretty sure he ended up being buried with a still active brain.  Combine that with the thought of a short story I read at some point in my life in which a person is put under anesthesia, yet they can feel everything that is happening to them.  The theme from the aforementioned movie, brain activity and/or feelings when you shouldn't have them, is still prevalent.  I'm pretty sure no one in the operating room will notice the tears trickling out of my seemingly sedated closed eyes as I undergo this routine surgery.

Words like surgery and operating room are terrifying to me as well.  Can't we just call it a procedure?  As the doctor, who asked me to call him by his first name - Tom (probably some sort of attempt to gain my trust; I'm very suspicious now), as TOM explained the PROCEDURE to me, he told me that he'd make three small incisions to insert the scope and clean out the soft, rough surface underneath my kneecap.  I thought covering my ears while rocking in the fetal position and singing, "La! La! La!" might be rude, so sat there listening like a big girl trying not to vomit. Again, in an attempt to calm my nerves when I shared these thoughts with my husband, I was advised, "They're just very small instruments that he inserts into your knee to clean out all of the crud."  To which I responded, "Really? Because I thought TOM was going to use something the size of a garden hose or maybe that pick-axe tool that the dentist uses to scrape plaque off your teeth to clean out the crud."  There is no rationalizing with Irrational Me.

I really don't know who will be considered the winner in the battle of Rational Me vs. Irrational Me.  In the end, I am pretty sure that I will follow through with this PROCEDURE as it will allow me to continue living an active lifestyle, and realizing that is what I will focus on to get me through this.  However, in the meantime, I will choose to not think about what will happen next Wednesday.  Is blocking it out being rational or irrational?  Does it even matter? I have found a way to move past my paranoia with no harm done.