Our Journey

[kar]

It is day two since our surgery. I feel 200 times better today. We were dropped off in San Diego with Meg and Dave thank Goodness for them.

Here are my observations:

1 do not stay anywhere near the railroad, the Marriott is kick a- and worth every penny.
2. do not expect great communication withthe staff, they are very kind but do a terrible job of lettingyou know what you are going to be doing.
3 tell you companions to remain calm, no one will come and let them know that you are out of surgery and are doing well.
4. The recovery house is nice enough, the beds are difficult to get in and out of. If you are traveling with a companion there may not be room at the house for them. This was a source of irritation for my hubby because he could not easliy find out how I was doing.
5. Bring a pill cutter, some of the pills the give you are large a tough to get down.
6. Flexible- you will be traveling to several places before you get to the clinic. Also our surgery's were late, my daughters were at 7:00pm and mine at 9:00 and I was not brought back to my room until 11:00 Again my hubby heard nothing the whole time.
7 English is a challenge for the staff. There were several occasions where we were with a group of people and not one person spoke English.

Right now I am still happy I had it done, but if I was to send another relative I would go to somewhere that all of the facilities were in one place and not spread all over a city.

I will check in again tomorrow!!!

[ruthgal1]

Thank you Kar. I'll be watching your thread. I've been thinking about getting the sleeve (former lap bander) and Dr. Almanza seems to be a popular surgeon. If you don't mind saying, was the cost actually $4500? That's what is advertised on his site.

[bobbybeegood]

Yeah it was 4500$, I did tip the staff 110$ and bring and extra 20$ if you want a copy of your leak xray.

[phardin1]

Hi Kar,
I'm having surgery with Dr Almanza sometime toward the end of July, tenativly scheduled for July 28. I really appriciate the details you provided. I have some other questions if you don't mind answering. When did you find out there was not space for your husband at the recovery house? Did they help you find accommodations for him and how much did that cost? Any other information you could share about the experience is appreciated.

Pam

[kar]

Pam, I would have your guest plan on staying at a hotel, then if it is not necessary you will be OK. They did give my hubby a ride to the hotel and it was $58.00. My husband was impressed with the hotel he said the food was great. Taxi rides were cheap about $5.00 for each way. The difficult thing is that the situation was always very dynamic, my hubby was going to come to the clinic in the AM but by that time they had shuffled us to the guest house. Let me know if you need to know anything else =)

[kar]

OK Day 4 after surgery and I have finally made it all the way home. To be honest when we were in San Diego we did go to the Zoo and spent several hours walking around. I was surprized at how well I felt yesterday. Today is evern better! One odd thing, I am not the slightest bit hungry, although I saw a picture of a red bell pepper and I have been obessing about it since. Wierd right?

Here are a couple of other things I would bring,

-a tighter fitting undershirt- if you have something a little more snug under your clothes you get less 'jiggled' around when traveling.
-bring butterfly bandages, I have a pretty good gap where they removed my drain and needed to close it with a butterfly bandages.
-also you will need to bring extra dressings, wound wash and tape to clean your stitiches after you leave.
- learn how to say I need pain medicine in spainish- it will be helpful.

I will keep adding things as I think about them.

[kar]

Day 7 after surgery and I am feeling great! I actually have a tremendous amount of energy. My husband and I were talking about our adventure this morning and we are still using words like traumatic. Let me preface this by saying we live in a very small community so some of what we experienced was big city shock. I thought I would describe our journey for you. This is not to discourage anyone from having the surgery but instead inform people of what we experienced so they will not be in shock

1. we met our party at the Jet Blue airline in SD. A couple of people were a few minutes late but the driver just pulled up loaded us up and we left. I tried to explain that we had two more people with us but he acted like he knew that so I assumed we were picking them up at their hotel. Not so, I then received a call from Louise saying the other people could not find us at the airport, to which I replied no kidding we are in the van. Louise was irraitated and we went back to the airport.

2. Once we crossed the border we went to a small place to have our blood drawn. Nothing unusal here other than it was tiny and we were pretty sure they used vodka instead of alcohol to swab our arms. The driver came into converse with the woman drawing our blood while she was drawing our blood.

3. Off to the xray clinic. It was a nice facility. It was a long wait there tho... We did get to meet a group of people who had surgery a couple days before, they were there for thier leak test.

4. Off to the Jerulsum hospital which is a clinic in a strip mall. This place is tiny, we all just sat in 'waiting room' for quite awhile. Dr. Bentacourt sashayed out with his new curtain samples. Again we just were not sure what we were suppose to be doing. They called several people back for EKGs- a sweet man that did not speak English told me mine was OK and then showed us the tape saying was normal. Then we were hauled upstairs to meet Dr. Almanza- sweet man that told us we would all be friends after this.

5. Meanwhile my hubby sat downstairs for over an hour wondering what was going on. Nobody to ask... This is a busy place there are several people hustling about, all the male staff wear the same outfit- drivers, nurses etc. The female nurses wear white old school dresses.

6. We were put in our room and given our IV's the nurse did a great job. The weird thing is that another patients clothes and phone were left in our room so we were not sure we were staying there. The gowns were huge even by chubby girl standards.

7. So we had our IVs in by about 2:30 or so and then we waited and waited.

8. I finally had my surgery at 9:00 and was brought back to my room at 11:00. You will walk to and from the OR, we walked up and downstairs. My hubby was brought to the upstairs waitng room about 4:00 he was a wreck. They offered him some food and once he saw me he was OK.

9. This is a busy place! There seemed to be several vistors of the staff in and out of the waiting room-right outside our door. It was loud- like a little party was going on.

10. We both made it back to our room we took turns being nauseous. Hubby went to the hotel at about 1:00 am. The male nurse? was very attentive and gave us pain meds whenever we called. I think my daughter developed a crush on him =) We did give him a $20.00 tip in the AM he was so sweet.

I will post more on day 2 tomorrow.

I hope someone may find this helpful!

[splendaaa]

Thanks for the details. The bottom line is we get what we pay for. Sounds ok enough. I'm still goig through with it there. The only thing that concers me is the number of surgeries performed in a day. It seems like alot. Hope by the last couple the doc is still awake!

[lizbeth]

WOW, after reading about your experience, I sure am glad I did mine here in Texas!!! I don't mean to be a debbie downer, but IMHO, I couldn't have gone to Mexico and gone thru what you did!! Cost or no cost, sorry!!!
I am truly glad your surgery went well. And I hope it continues to do so.

[bobbybeegood]

glad to ear from you guys. Megan was getting worried & wanted to text Jordan. Everything is going great for us too.

[kar]

I think you will do well. I think that if you are ready for how it works it will be much easier. =) As far as the number he did 6 surgeries the day we were there. I am not sure that is an everyday occurance. Although the group before us seemed to be about 5. Perhaps in the fall it will not be as busy as the summer.

[yippyskippy]

Kar,
Thank you, thank you for the great description of what to expect in Mexico! I had no idea that we will be shuffled from place to place...kinda thought it would be all in one "convenient location" lol! Did you say that your husband stayed at the Marriott?

[kar]

He did but he also stayed at the Tucanda? It was like 58.00 bucks a night and my hubby said it was nice and they had great food.

[kar]

Sorry I have been so long! I sort of took a little vacation =)

So day 2!

Day 2 we were woke up about 8:00 ish and told we were heading to the recovery house. We were given a dose of pain medication got dressed and were loaded up in the van.

A quick jaunt across town and we arrived at the house. The house was bustling with people when we arrived. We went to our room and went to bed for a while. The beds are really difficult to get in and out of. I always felt like I may fall when getting out of bed. The room was clean and we found an English TV channel.

We then were up and down for the rest of the day. We would rest for a bit and then we would go downstairs and sit for a bit. You need to be prepared to ask for anything you need. If you want a popcicle or water be sure to ask! The nurse that was there was very nice, but she did not speak English. The pain medication that we were given now was given directly into the port and man does that sting.

That evening the nurse gave us one more dose of pain medication and a sleeping pill. Man did that pill ever work! It seems like we did not move all night.
the nurse said if you need anything call me, calling her would have entailed opening our door and going downstairs. We did not however need anything.

We were woke up about 9:00 the next day, we were told we were leaving. We got dressed and then headed downstairs to drink our purple juice. Which tasted like ink from a bic pen. We all had purple teeth and lips. Dave was the only one that finished his, I just could not choke it down I drank about half. We were loaded in the van and taken back to the radiology clinic. Once it was our turn we went in drank a barium drink? and had an xray taken. bring $20.00 with you so you can bring your xray home. We took our xrays back to the clinic. Jordan and I were called to the back and we had our IV port removed and our drain tubes removed. It really did not hurt, it just felt odd. I am sure someone looked to make sure our leak test went well but we did not have anyone tell us that. A couple that was with us were shuffled back to the house although they were planning on going to San Diego also fortunately they had their tubes removed by the nurse at the house.

After that we were off to San Diego. It took us a while to cross the border but it was easy.

While in SD we stayed one more night at the Marriott and then we were headed home.

By day 3 I was feeling much better. I have to tell you that when I went to have my stitches removed the NP said the stitches were put in way too tight. I am not sure why but again I am just warning you!

[bobbybeegood]

By day 3 I was feeling much better. I have to tell you that when I went to have my stitches removed the NP said the stitches were put in way too tight. I am not sure why but again I am just warning you!

I thought the same time when I saw mine but also, being tight like that will make the scar less visable. So, I guess it's not a perfect science. I do think it's funny, the center wound, where the drain was located, everytime I contract my abd muscle, like sitting up in bed, that wound sucks in. Now I do it just for fun to watch it go in & out! I know, easy to amuse the simple! Glad to hear you folks are doing so well. It's been pretty smooth sailing for both me & Megan. Keep in touch... DAVE