Umpteen years ago a friend of mine went in to get a colonoscopy. But a not so funny thing happened to him. Try as they might, they couldn’t knock him out. The poor guy remained conscious.

So they performed the procedure…while he was wide awake. He watched the whole thing on a video screen in the operating room.

His reaction? He called the experience “fascinating.”

I thought of my friend when I saw this news this week…

Lead surgeon Dr. Christian Brogna said he performs 50 “awake surgeries” per year.

More than 10 doctors, including neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists, neuropsychologists, neurophysiologists and engineers, were involved in the 9-hour “complex intervention” which was the first of its kind performed in Italy, the hospital said.

Throughout the procedure, the patient GZ played the Italian national anthem and the theme from the 1970 film “Love Story.”

This version stayed on the Billboard chart for 13 weeks, eventually peaking at number nine.