- Name: Theresa
- Age: 48
- Surgery: Gastric Sleeve
- Surgery date: August 14th, 2014
- Testimonial date: September 2nd, 2014
- Surgeon: Dr. Almanza
Day 1: I arrived in San Diego and was set up for the noon pick-up. I did not know that it was going to be a plain white van, so that's just a fyi. The drive was 30 minutes late and I did not get a text telling me so, so of course my mind started to wonder since I had already paid in full.
I finally sent a text to get the description of the van and when it arrived it was nice to see 3 other people in the van with me. One guy, his mother had the surgery their so that put me at ease and then one of the ladies her sister had the "mommy makeover", so now i was feeling pretty confident!
The ride was about 30 minutes and just prior to us going over the border, we all got a text and it said "would you like to have your surgery today"? I was like - ya! One more day for recovery! We headed straight to the surgical center and did all of our pre opt and off to surgery we went.
Just before the surgery you are wheeled into the recovery room to wait your turn to go in to surgery and the lady before me was wining saying she couldn't get up and it kind of scared me!
The i was wheeled into the operation room and was out within seconds. The next thing i remember i'm back in recovery and the nurse is asking me to get up and i don't know if i did any wining, but i know i did get right up and was taken to my room (which i shared with other lovely ladies). The key to recovery with this surgery is walk walk walk walk walk. I must have walked the halls 6 hours just trying to get that gas out of me. By the way make sure you bring the GAS X STRIPS not the pills YOU WILL NEED THEM! I did not feel like i just had a surgery, i felt like i had done 100 setups and that was the only pain if you will that i had. I have a very low tolerance for pain, so trust me, get those core stomach muscles strong and walk walk walk prior to surgery and then afterwards hopefully you will feel as well as I did. The worst part of the entire surgery was not having any water or ice chips available and i was dying of thirst since i had not had anything to drink since my flight which landed at 10am.
Day 2: They moved us to the hotel. I was disapointed after we had to get up so early that the hotel did not have rooms for us, so we had to wait until about noon. Once we got to the hotel at the check in, we were introduced to the staff nurse and was told to call anytime we needed and at the front receptions desk we could pick up apple juice, jello, Popsicles and gave us coupons for chicken broth which you could get to go from the restaurant. I don't ever want to see another thing of jello as long as i live!!!
So shortly after we settled in our rooms the nurse came by looked us over and hooked us up to an IV with Pain medicine, antibiotics, etc. Once the bag was empty you just call the nurse and they remove it and you just walk walk walk........it was kind of a pain because they have this little tube hanging out of you that has fluids that are coming out of your body, but you can just put it in your pocket...just check to make sure the top doesn't come off :) I actually brought an ice pack with me and kept it on my tummy to help with swelling, which i never had.
Day 3: We went for X-rays and had to drink this awful stuff, but it's really important to drink it (trust me i'm the kind of person that will throw up just taking cold medicine)just the way the technichian tells you to drink it. What they are doing is watching the liquid go from your throat to your stomach to make sure there are no leaks....so it's really important. I just ran straight to the bathroom and rinsed my mouth out several times. All 10 of us had successful surgeries - no leaks.
Walk walk walk...........some of the people looked like they were in pain, so i know they did not do the walking or the core strengthening prior to the surgery as me and another lady were walking just fine. As a matter of fact when we returned we went shopping for about 4 hours....walk walk walk.
Day 4: They took that tube out finally!!! and took us off the IV and now it was time to take the medicine to include pain pills. I have to say this was my worst day, but i think a lot of it had to do with this night club that is right beside the hotel that is open for 9pm to 6am and the music blared and blared all Friday and Saturday night. It was AWFUL!!! Sunday night was good and i came home on Monday feeling great.
Overall it was a very good experience. The staff was very friendly and caring.
I was probably one of the smaller people there as I weighted 185.5 on August 14th and today on August 30th I am 14.5lbs lighter. It's been kind of a struggle to eat because you just can't get it down. My biggest worry was when i got home i would over eat....well i have to tell you, you physically just cant do it. It makes you sick and you feel like you want to die.........so don't worry about over eating. I'm eating lots of different things now i just have to use a SMALL spoon and chop up everything very fine.
Now I'm looking forward to the next few months so I can do the things i haven't been able to do for quite awhile!
Sorry, i don't do internet photos, but i am planning a year down the road to MAYBE do the mommy makeover :)
I hope this helps the staff so the drivers are on time and to see if they can get something done about the noise at the hotel on the weekends and most of all i hope this will help anyone that reads what i have to say feel more confident in the process.
Kindest Regards,
Theresa
* This is an actual testimonial, however, your results may vary. For more information, please read our Testimonial Disclaimer and Risks of Surgery.