The Tube seems to be the most feared part of the operation. Even more than the carving of the heart.
One way to view The Tube is this:
If you awaken with it still in, as many do, it will already have kept you alive for several hours by keeping you fully oxygenated.
It will not stop oxygenating you just because you have awakened. You are in no danger of suffocating. There is no excuse for panicking about not getting enough air. The concern that the staff will have is not whether The Tube will provide you with enough oxygen, but whether you will be able to provide yourself with enough oxygen when they let you try to breathe on your own without it. They've all had lots of experience with people on The Tube, and they know that it works reliably.
You may not be able to hear the machine and time your breathing to it. You will find that if you are not in synch with it, it will be very difficult or impossible to breathe for yourself against it.
But that's all right. The plain fact is that, while it's in you don't need to breathe at all. Yup. Not required. Laziest thing you've ever done in your life. Can't even get that kind of service on a cruise ship.
If you can bend your mind around it, it's kind of neat.
I am claustophobic and have a Dentist's Nightmare gag reflex. The tube is past your gag reflex, and once you realize that your oxygen is being supplied by it, and your oxygen saturation is being measured by other machines, you can relax with it until they take it out. After all, if you weren't already getting enough oxygen, you wouldn't have awakened, would you?
Have a loved one bring a pad and pen, so you can communicate, which is more than half the angst that people go through with it. And relax. Having a tube means you're out of surgery...
If you look up "breathing tube" in search, you will find a number of threads that discuss it. It's not that bad.
Best wishes,
