TY - JOUR T1 - Into the liminal zone: an opioid experience JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 28 LP - 28 DO - 10.3399/bjgp22X718157 VL - 72 IS - 714 AU - Giles Hazan Y1 - 2022/01/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/72/714/28.abstract N2 - I woke to find myself stuck somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, a liminal zone, a threshold between dream and reality. Drifting in and out of consciousness, my dreams came with me, events and people on the ward merged into a hallucinogenic thriller where events in the present affected not only the future but also the past. With hindsight, my choice of watching the film Tenet the night before going in for brain surgery, with its themes of time travel and a race to avert international disaster, may not have been ideal.Earlier that year I was diagnosed with a pituitary adenoma and, after careful discussion with my team of endocrinologists and neurosurgeons, decided to have surgery to remove it. Generally considered a safe surgery, I expected to be in hospital for less than a week and was reassured I would need only simple analgesia after the first few days. Of course, I should have considered the additional ‘risk magnifier’ for medical personnel. Based on experience, this suggests that if the patient is a member of the medical profession anything that can go wrong with a procedure, generally will.Sure enough, during surgery I had the rare complication of a … ER -