My First Test Subject: The Nurse Who Almost Peed Her Pants During Induction

You never forget your first test subject.
Your first intubation.
Your first code.
Your first propofol bolus that turned a fully conscious human into a snoring angel with a GCS of pillow.
And you especially don’t forget the first time someone watched it happen and nearly peed their pants in clinical awe.

She refuses to reveal her name, so we should only call her the first test subject.
Not from fear. From giggling. From disbelief. From that 2 a.m. brand of exhaustion, where everything feels like a joke and a spiritual awakening at once. She was with me on that 2a.m. being on-call shift. She will see her fake name and immediately be proud of me.

I’m not writing poetry today. This is a short novel. The kind you tell after rounds, when the patient’s stable, the OR is cold, and the nurse test subject next to you nearly loses control of both her bladder and her dignity.

It was a routine laparoscopy—middle of the day, nothing dramatic. I pushed the propofol with the same calm I always fake, and the patient drifted off exactly as planned.

But what happened next wasn’t about the patient. It was about the nurse.
The same one who, just a few days earlier, witnessed me perform the bedtime miracle during a chaotic on-call shift. You might’ve read about it—the intern was panicking, and the propofol was not.

She stood beside me again now, mask on, eyes wide, and just as the patient exhaled that signature sedation sigh, she burst into uncontrollable giggles.

“God,” she whispered. “It’s just as good as I remembered. I think I just peed a little.”

My First Test Subject Is Always The Most Dangerous

I looked at her like she was a science experiment gone emotionally rogue.

“You’re seriously tearing up,” I said, passing her a gauze like it was a tissue. “Again.”

She shook her head, still giggling behind her mask. “I swear I’m not usually like this. It’s just… the way they go under. It’s so clean. Like—”
She paused, searching for the words.
Then she quoted herself—straight from that night we both survived:

“One moment they’re breathing, thinking, blinking—and then boom. Gone. Like flipping a switch.”

I smiled. She remembered.

Back then, she was all wide-eyed adrenaline and whispered panic.
Now? She was watching it happen like a fan rewatching her favorite scene.

“I told you,” I said. “It gets under your skin.”

She nodded. “I didn’t think I’d become obsessed.”

And just like that, I realized something:
She wasn’t just another nurse.
She was my first test subject—the first person I ever converted to the dark art of loving propofol for the wrong reasons.

She Was Never the Same After That Bolus

We didn’t talk much after the case. We didn’t have to.

She pulled her mask down just long enough to mouth “witchcraft” across the recovery bay, then went back to charting like she hadn’t just spiritually imprinted on an induction.

Later that day, she caught me in the hallway. “Clamp something”.
“I’ll be there,” she said, nodding toward the schedule.
Then, grinning: “Unless I hit a deer.”

It hit me like a delayed bolus—this wasn’t a moment anymore. It was lore.

First, she witnessed propofol magic mid-police pursuit and helicopter floodlights.
Now she laughed through an OR case like she’d joined a secret cult of sleep-givers.

My first test subject wasn’t just converted.
She was loyal.
Hooked.
And possibly traumatized in the best way.

I didn’t say anything back.
I just raised the vial and nodded like a caffeinated Gandalf.
She got the message.

She Laughed. I Logged the Reaction. That’s How You Treat a Test Subject.

In our world, you don’t get many chances to run a social experiment in real-time—especially one that involves watching someone emotionally unravel over a bolus of propofol. But this? This was textbook.

She laughed.
Not a cute giggle. Not polite amusement.
A full-body, mask-wrinkling, I’m-going-to-need-a-second-to-breathe laugh.

And I did what anyone running an unapproved study would do.
I observed.
I logged the reaction.
I adjusted the dosage of dry sarcasm accordingly.

She’d seen it before—days earlier during that absurd on-call night with the panicking intern and the helicopter circling above the ER like we were filming Grey’s Anatomy.

She was there for the quote:

“I don’t know why I’m crying. This is better than sleep.”

And now she was here, laughing like a delirious little gremlin over the same white liquid she used to fear.

The transformation was complete.
From spectator to believer.
From nurse to full-blown test subject.

I didn’t need a consent form.
She gave me the only thing I required: awe, laughter, and the promise to always show up—
“Clamp something. I will be there. Unless I hit a deer.”

Fair enough.
Even science has limits.

Some Bonds Are Sealed in Laughter (and Lipid)

You can teach technique. You can explain receptors.
But you can’t fake that look—the one someone gives you when they’ve just watched consciousness disappear on command.

She was my first test subject.
Not because she signed up for it, but because something in her snapped the moment she saw that transformation—and liked it.
Now she quotes her own panic like scripture and laughs during inductions like they’re inside jokes only we understand.

She’ll be there next time.
Unless a deer takes her out.
But even then? I think she’d find a way to chart from the ditch.

That’s the thing about test subjects: once they’ve seen the light go out…
they never really go back.