There was almost no real danger. I understood that, intellectually.
And yet my body decided, “This is not good.”

It was about a gastroscopy.

It was my first time. The doctor had said, “We’d like to proceed with the examination as soon as possible and move directly toward surgery,” and it had been scheduled without sedation. I simply went along with the flow. Later I asked a nurse whether sedation was still possible. “It’s difficult at this point,” she said. And so the day arrived.

In the examination room, the technician said, “Let’s do our best.”

For some reason, that cooled something inside me.

—Why does this require doing my best?

The first attempt stopped at my throat. Gagging. Heart rate spiking. Pause.

I knew, rationally, that it was safe. Still, my body refused. Of course it did. Something was being forced down my throat. My mind offered explanations. Separately from that explanation, my body had already decided: “This is death.”

On the second attempt, it finally passed. After that, it was simply a matter of enduring discomfort. If asked what I wanted most in that moment, I would have answered without hesitation: sedation.

In my stories, I have written about “death” many times.
And yet, merely having a tube in my throat, my body rejected it with full sincerity.

More than death itself, it is the reaction just before it that feels vivid.

From a place of safety, I felt, “I might die.” Even so, the reaction my body showed in that moment left a trace.

The body reacts before the mind.

At the very least, next time I will request sedation.
Not as a matter of logic,
but as a decision made by the body.