Great disappointment

I can't imagine anything more disappointing to a person (me, of course) dreading surgery, but looking forward to general anaesthetic, than being informed that you won't be going all the way under. A spinal injection to numb my lower half, and a bit through my IV to "make me happy", as the anaesthetist said, was all I got. I could even have declined the latter and been fully focussed on watching the surgery on the monitor, but I informed him that the less I knew about what was going on, the better. But the semi-lucid state that I was in during surgery and for a few minutes afterwards wasn't half bad.