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She's hip: Patient sings, stays awake during surgery London - A patient who elected to stay awake during hip-replacement surgery sang along to opera and musicals to take her mind off the operation. Rosemary Owen, who had previously suffered side effects from a general anaesthetic, chose Luciano Pavarotti and Andrew Lloyd Webber numbers as an alternative. She even played conductor to some songs as she lay in the operating theatre. Mrs. Owen said she asked medical staff to play the taped music through-out the two-hour procedure in the hope it would stop her hearing the surgeons talking about finer points of the operation. The 60-year-old, who had an epidural injection, which numbs the body from the waist down, said, "It felt more like 20 minutes. I was fully conscious but didn't feel a thing. I didn't feel worried or anything; I may as well have been going to see a show I was so relaxed." She added; "Very soon I was happily singing along and got completely carried away. When 'Phantom of the Opera' struck up, I said it was my favourite. I was conducting the music with my hands as the surgeons worked away." Although Mrs. Owens, a mother of four, considers herself a "tone-deaf bathroom singer" , she was happy to tackle other favourites from the Lloyd Webber hit musicals, including 'Memory', 'Take That Look Off Your Face', and 'Don't Cry for Me, Argentina'. She also joined in a Pavarotti rendition of 'Nesum Dorma' with gusto. It fittingly translates to "none shall sleep". Mrs. Owen, who has had trouble with her hip since a fall on holiday two years ago, said: "I could see what was happening and sang my head off and nobody cared. I felt absolutely great afterwards. For the first time in years, I can walk without suffering any pain." A hospital spokesman said, "Singing an opera at the top of your voice demonstrates that an operation, when awake, is nothing to fear." Printed in the Ottawa Citizen 23 October 1998 janet paterson - 51/41/37 - almonte/ontario/canada http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/janet/ [log in to unmask]