I see that some VR.com members don't care much for the TEE.
I've had two, plus several endoscopies. Apparently, after a few endoscopies, I developed a choking response. Now, whenever I have one of those procedures, the doc just increases the dose of VERSED and everything goes just fine. There may be some benefit to asking for an endoscopy (visual inspection of your esophogus) prior to the TEE to ensure that you don't have any scrictures in your esophogus since the TEE transducer may be a larger than the endoscope.
One of the side effects (benefits?) of Versed is that you don't remember anything that happened during (and after) the procedure, sometimes for a few hours, which is another reason they request that someone ELSE drive you home and you stay put for the rest of the day.
'AL'