Sometimes when someone dies in their sleep or dies quickly, people say
it was for the best.

On the one hand, being aware of dying... having the experience of dying
for sure - the last hours and minutes, or seconds - might fill me with
panic - more so if death is not a sure thing, but maybe not so
panic-filled if it is an inevitable outcome over some period of time.

But I hate the idea of going and not ever knowing.

Once I had to have this heart procedure where they put me out with a
very fast, strong, but very short-acting drug.  I was under for a total
of about 3 minutes.

But when they said to count back from 100 and started to push the stuff
in, I had the thought that if I died during the procedure, this would be
my last experience.

I decided to try to get as far down from 100 as possible.

But the count down from 100 instruction is really a diversion - the
stuff hits you too fast to do any counting at all.

As I recall, I said "100" and the next thing I knew, the nurse was
saying, "Ah, look who's back with us."