Chicago Man Undergoes Kidney Transplant While Awake [Video]

A 28-year-old man from Chicago has undergone a kidney transplant — and he was awake the entire time.

“It was a pretty cool experience to know what was happening in real time and be aware of the magnitude of what they were doing,” John Nicholas, who went to school for biomedical engineering, said. “Seeing it so up close and personal and literally directly applying to me was a really exciting experience.”

“At one point during surgery, I recall asking, ‘Should I be expecting the spinal anesthesia to kick in?’ They had already been doing a lot of work and I had been completely oblivious to that fact. Truly, no sensation whatsoever,” Nicholas recalled of the May 24 surgery. 

The surgery, which took place at Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center, took less than two hours, and the sedation Nicholas received is similar to the type used for cesarean sections.

And as Nicholas …