Dr. Brian Pennie

It was the medical practice believed that babies won't remember, they don't experience pain like normal people.

The anesthetic would be too dangerous.

They made a mess of things.

So I believe that sort of created this phobic fear of my own body, my heartbeat, my breath, my pulse.

I was terrified of my own inner body.

And then my mom and dad, beautiful people, incredible people, but they were alcoholics.

They had their own challenges.

So building and compounding on that bodily fear, I just developed this fear that my parents were going to die from drink driving.

And I was just, I was just terrified.

I had this internal chatter that everything, people were going to die that I loved and I was in danger.

And it was mental, emotional, physical pain, just, yeah.

I was six weeks old.

Yeah, six weeks.

I had a condition.

It's called intestinal malrotation where my intestines were twisted.

So basically they would open me up with a scalpel and rummaging in my intestines, putting them back in and I was literally awake.

Crazy.

There was a local anaesthetic for the pain but they didn't give babies general anaesthetic so they were awake.

And I've since, I've gone down a rabbit hole with this.

I talked to surgeons who implemented these surgeries and I would have been put on this apparatus like a crucifix so to tie me arms and legs down so I couldn't squirm while they were undergoing the surgery.