Alright folks! This is what you've all been waiting for. My take on my experience getting sleeved in Tijuana, MX at Mi Doctor Hospital with Dr. Cabrera/Garcia! Click Read More below to get a gist of it all for yourselves!
As I packed my tiny little roll-on full of the items I would be needing for the coming days, I noticed I hadn't yet felt much anxiety or excitement over what was to come the very next day, in a long while nonetheless. Strange how I seem to just go numb when big things are happening in my life. Must be some sort of coping mechanism, I thought. Who knows, if I were feeling every bit as anxious or excited as I hoped I would be I might even become overwhelmed with it all? I know that's not much like me at all, but I've never done something like this before have I?
So I pack, (as my stomach growls yet again) with as little enthusiasm as if I were packing this tiny little suitcase not for myself for the big huge trip I was going on come tomorrow, but almost as if it were for someone else....my kids maybe...maybe my mom...but certainly not me! No, no...it certainly couldn't be me. Nothing exciting ever happens to me, I thought. And with this, I finished packing, placed my roll-on in the landing next to the door for easy access next morning, put on my pajamas and went to bed. Not really giving too much thought to the adventure that I was going to be going on the very next day, and the day after!
The thing is, it worries me sometimes how I don't get too excited for things I should be over the moon for. I mean, it's not like I'm some emotionless, less dead form of zombie or something. It's just that I can't seem to get nervous or anxious, or even those twinges of excitement people get in their bellies every now and then when they've got something big they're looking forward to. Is it strange I thought this time would be any different? Despite the fact I hadn't felt a thing since I booked the flight practically a month ago.
You see, I'm having a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy come the day after tomorrow. It's no small thing my friends! This is full on bariatric surgery. No joke, the whole shebang! And to top it all off, I'm having this full fledged surgical procedure in none other than Mexico! Tijuana, Mexico to be precise. At the pretty well-known (at least in the self-pay gastric sleeve circles) Mi Doctor Hospital with Dr. Israel Cabrera Garcia! You see why I worry I might be among the undead here? This is major surgery we're talking about people, I should be an absolute wreck of emotions right now. But nope, nothing, nada, zilch, knock-knock....yep, no one there. Jeez, what is all that about?
Alarm goes off and I'm awake. Was a good rest to be completely honest. Dreamed of doughnuts I think...or was it bagels? I expect I won't be having anymore of that come the day after tomorrow! Off to the airport with my traveling partner and my ride, in other words my mom and the hubby hehe. Arrived at the airport early, feeling suave with our previously printed out boarding passes in our hands with our passports passing all the lame-o's in line at the check in/ticketing booths.....like a boss! Then we see that security line......shmurr. I guess you really can't get lucky twice. Once we'd passed security though, everything else was a cinch (Isn't it always?). Sitting there at the gate waiting for the boarding to start I search for a glimmer of emotion within myself again....this is becoming a habit. Nothing. Again. What is wrong with me?
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| Delta Airlines, Detroit - San Diego. The row behind us. |
Skip this to get to the point...
So we get off at San Diego International Airport and head over to the ground transportation area at the lower level, and we wait.....and wait........aaaand wait. What for you might ask? Well, the company that we booked our hospital/hotel stay in Tijuana (medicaltourismco) provided us with a free drive to and from the San Diego Int'l Airport and across the boarder subsequently, however the first step of that plan hadn't seemed to have gone too well on their part. 15 minutes gone, 25 now, we're at 45, an hour, another hour... Yeah, I'm pretty freaked at this point to say the least. So I called my coordinator from the company to ask what was going on and as it turns out no one is picking up at their end! I call again, I wait a few minutes and I call another time. Needless to say I'm getting mighty panicky now!
At this point, all sorts of wild and crazy things are going through my mind. Thoughts like, "They forgot about us", "I've been totally stood up", and the worst yet "FRAUD I tell ya!". So I am pretty hopeless at this point as the two numbers for the driver I had gotten from my coordinator through email only a few days previously are +52 Mexico numbers and I can't find a soul in this darn airport who knows how to get them working! Not to mention I can't get a hold of my coordinator OR the company itself for reasons unknown to me! I'll just say that we are waaaaay passed a simple "shmur" at this point. I don't even think a major "Uber She-Murr!!! is going to cut it now!
Then it hits me! Major light bulb moment here! So I opened up my Macbook Air and laid out some much used letters in that address bar in Chrome and hit enter. This was my last chance for a bit of sanity in this whole messed up situation. And when the front page for VerticalSleeveTalk.Com opens up I feel such relief I can't put it in words! A whole website/forum full of nice kind people to ask for help...so I'm not alone after-all! Phew to that indeed! So I head on over to the Self-Pay and Mexico Sleeve Surgery forum and post my dilemma and ask for help. Now I wait.
I'm thinking it'll be at least an hour or two until I get a reply so I'd better make myself comfy. Right as I'm ready to pull up a chair I see a notification pop up on my desktop. Guess I've got email folks! I see it's from VST so I don't even attempt to open it and head straight back to my thread and whadda ya know. Lo and behold I've got at least a dozen replies from all the nicest people in the universe with words of care and support willing to help in any way that they can. Ranging from the kindest words of comfort to people ready to call people they know in Mexico to set up a drive for me etc (you know who you are! I love ya to death!). Needless to say, I felt loved.
However, no need for that as it turned out. Coincidentally, within minutes of my post on VST I received a call from a California number. As I picked up and heard a heavy spanish accent a world of relief washed over me! As it turns out, the driver did not have my correct contact number, and had been dialing a previous non-working one of mines the entire time. I had given my new number to my coordinator to forward to the driver and clearly remember having discussed with her a few days previously, that I would be using my mothers cell phone in San Diego because of problems with my own cell phone, but it appears something must have gone awry. The driver told me he had been driving around the airport for hours with a sign with my name on it. It seems both he and I had been running around looking for each other and consequently kept missing one another. Yeah.....I'll say it. Shmur.
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| Approaching the San Diego - Tijuana border. |
Crossing the border was a breeze. It was pretty much a touch and go thing, even barely so. We basically just drove right through. I even saw Eduardo (our driver) wave at one of the guys in uniform at the border. Yeah, I was impressed! You don't get that kind of treatment at the Canadian border, no sirree! I guess it's easy to get into Mexico from the U.S. I assume it won't be that easy the other way around, but we'll see won't we.
Our drive from the airport to the Marriott was fairly short. A mere 20-25 minutes at the most. It was a nice experience, well enjoyed! My mother just loved seeing the huge Mexican Flag hovering over the city of Tijuana (I suppose) to the right of us as we made our way to the hotel. Once we arrived, our luggage was taken from the car and placed on a trolley and we were guided to the reception desk for our reservation. The guys at the reception desk were uber nice and were doing their absolute best to accommodate us. The only problem was, it seemed that they hadn't received some sort of letter document from our clinic/company (medicaltourismco I suppose) that contained the reservation of our room and stay.
But not to worry, like magic just as the clerk mentioned this discrepancy and before either of us could further ponder the matter, a beautiful lady dressed in navy blue and black arrived with that exact paper in hand! (I could swear she was bathed in some sort of heavenly glowing light or something too...). She spoke some fast spanish to the clerk and handed him the paper. Then she turned towards us and shook our hands and introduced herself as Nissi from the company and the hospital! Needless to say, I was relieved! Finally someone from the company, and she speaks amazing english! She helped bundles and bundles with the reservation and gave us a briefing on the schedule for the next 5 days. She handed us her contact details and told us to contact her anytime for anything, and that she means it! Yeah...that's VIP treatment, to say the least.
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| Top: Various items from buffet. Bottom: Vegetable Cucumber soup. |
After a delicious meal at the Marriott restaurant we headed to our two queen-bedroom and took no time to dilly. We quickly pulled out all of our toiletries, quickly changed clothes and touched up our hair and makeup and headed out to.....uh....Walmart. Yes, Walmart........they're everywhere I tell ya! It was $10.00 for a hotel taxi to take us and come get us at a pre-decided time about 2-hours from drop off. So we paid the nice man 5 bucks and headed on our way up the escalator from the indoor parking lot......to a whole new world of shopping bliss! No joke, my mother and I thought we were headed for a simple shop to the local Walmart to get some things we couldn't bring along in our teeny tiny roll-ons but were we surprised. I guess it was some sort of mini tourist-trap shopping plaza I guess. I'll have a short video up soon on my vlog showing you guys around a bit, and I'll link to it here when it's up. Anyways, as soon as we finished shopping and looking around we met the taxi guy at the allotted time and headed back to the hotel for the night for a relaxing nights sleep before the big day.
As my surgery was scheduled at 1:00pm the following day I wasn't too fussed over getting up early or anything, those beds are just uber-comfortable! However, my mother was headed back over the boarder to spend a day in LA as she had planned. So she was up at before 6:00am getting ready and getting her things packed to go. I could hear her in my half sleep state moving about the entire room the whole time. To be honest, this trip of hers was a big relief for me as my mother is a bit panicky when it comes to hospitals and her children. Funny though, because she's been a nurse longer than I've been alive. I'd rather just not have her around for the nitty gritty's of the hospital so that I don't have to panic about her panicking. Nissy arranged this beautiful trip for my mother and going by what my mother tells me everything went exceptionally! She got to see everything she had wanted and more.So it's time to head down to reception and take the Marriott Shuttle Service to the hospital for my big day! Just as I head towards the reception desk the nice lady at reception tells me the shuttle will be here in about 10 minutes and that I can go and wait in the main lobby. So lo and behold people...that's what I do. 10 minutes on the dot and I'm sitting in my shuttle as it takes me through the busy streets of Tijuana towards my destination. I won't lie, I tried to take loads of pictures but was unable to get a steady shot. So that idea went out the window, and so would my camera have had I not pulled it back in the car when I did. Boy, driving in Tijuana is a dangerous feat indeed! Props to that shuttle driver!
As the shuttle parks at the front entrance of Mi Doctor Hospital who do I happen to see standing at the front doors waiting to welcome me? Yep, you guessed it! Whom other than the absolute sweetheart Nissi! She had a man take my things out of the shuttle as I came up to greet her. We entered the hospital together as she showed me around. There was a small pharmacy located to my left just as we entered the facility and a cafeteria to the right. Just up ahead was a small waiting area with some seating. We headed into the elevator and went up a few floors to what seemed to be a lobby/office type area. Plenty of activity around these parts. I was seated at the small lobby area near the office where a slender young women was sitting fussing around with loads of documents. Nissi went into the office for a bit and came and brought back some paperwork for me to fill out.
Easy enough stuff, just the basics really. Are you allergic to anything? Do you take any medications? Have you had surgery before etc? That sort of jazz. So I filled that baby out as fast as I could and handed it back to her. She took it in to the small office and only moments later called me in to sit there also. I made payment and the slender young women (I believe her name was Yasmin?!?) took it and placed it in an envelope, carefully stapled it and stuck it in a safe in a lower shelf. All this time I'm thinking "wonder where the hospital part of this hospital is?" because so far, I see no indication of actual patients and no rooms or wards etc. Not a moment too soon Nissi tells me that my room is ready.
So this is where they keep the hospital part of the hospital. Ah....nifty. The moment we enter this place all I see are rooms, nurses, stretchers and medical equipment. No doubt left in my mind at all that this is a hospital. I am taken to my room, room 403. I didn't take pictures of the hospital simply for the privacy of the other patients. But I'll give you guys a brief description so you don't feel left out. The rooms are pretty basic, but understandably so! In my room there were two beds side by side, a bathroom equipped with a standing shower, at the foot of the first bed, a large window with the view of the outside street at the lower left end side of the second bed, some shelving/storage areas for our stuff underneath the latter with a small safe for valuables sitting precariously on top, and a television on the wall beside it. Pretty basic, but like I said...understandably so.
This is when all that bound-up, hidden away excitement finally kicked in! Everything just got real now! So I situate myself in this room and open up my Macbook and make a few posts on VST to let everyone know everything is well on my side and that I'm only a few hours from my surgery and pretty much everything that went on from there. You can find those posts below so you don't have to fish them out yourselves. Don't we just love convenience!
Posted July 25, 2013 - 5:25 PMOk, so I'm officially admitted to Mi Doctor. Sitting on my bed, in my room right now! Waiting for the nurse to come do my EKG!!!! So excited I might explode! HAHA! Anyways....just got my blood pressure taken. And ever since I got to MX I've been dealing with Nissi......ATTN: EVERYONE ASK FOR THIS GIRL! SHE IS UH-FRIGGIN-MAZINGGGGGG! Girl gets it done I tell ya! And she's quick as heck! Not to mention she runs the place and people here like a boss!!!! She'll do everything and MORE in her power to make sure you feel uber comfortable....or fall head over heals in love with her, and leave your spouse/partner.....one of the two
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- Nurse just walked in.
Ok, back, just got my EKG done. Was a breeze.....first time....is it bad I was thinking copious amounts of electricity were supposed to flow out of those probes and teach my left breast how to dougie.....
- Another nurse just walked in.
Yes so, just got my bloodwork done. Essentially pain free! Several unidentified solar systems better regarding pain level!!!!
- Hold on...EKG nurse just walked in...lol.
Okay....THAT was an owie...waah.. Just got the IV. The female nurse was having a super hard time finding a good vein (My veins ALWAYS end up FAILING me like this LOL). She kept on pulling it back, and shoving it in again.....several rounds of this and the mail nurse who was initially supposed to do my EKG (but Nissi the absolute angel felt I'd be more comfy having a female err...deal with that...situation. lol...she was so right
) magically walked in and asked me if I'd be ok with letting him have a try. I didn't feel a single thing when he did it....he also took his time finding my good vein and coercing that sneaky little b*tch out. He rocks.....U.S nurses should learn from this guy....no ish!
- One sec...A doctor just walked in.
Ok, so yeah. A staff doc just let me know my bloodwork and ekg look picture perfect and I'll be having the surgery in approximately an hour and a half! WOOHOOOOO! Can't wait!
Posted July 25, 2013 - 5:55 PMThanks Lady cristal!
- EKG nurse just walked in with some funky tights and a shower cap looking thing lol.....needless to say I look sexy!
....shmurr....
Posted July 26, 2013 - 3:09 PM
Finally can use my laptop......sorry for such a super late update guys, but I went straight into surgery immediately following my last post on here. Surgery was a cinch as far as I know lol. They had me lie down on the surgery bed and put some anesthesia in and told me I'd be feeling very sleepy gradually and to just flow with it....I honestly remember nothing but that. I assume it must have been hilarious for the staff to see me talking (can't keep my mouth shut for the life of me...lol) and then just suddenly bam....knocked out mutha luvvaaaa lol!
Recovery wasn't too bad either. Not too much pain, just some discomfort....and not even that was too bad. Was butterflies and lolly pops compared to being induced for labour let me tell ya! And was fairyland compared to epidural! YIKES! Just never do it girls....just dont!
So I'm lying on my bed in my room again, was having a difficult time getting up....am still pretty sleepy. I wanted to update on here and make some after procedure vids for my vlog too but I just got comfortable enough to use my laptop in a laying position.
As far as pains and discomforts go, I'll have more details in my blog....but I will just say that my shoulder is THE WORST!!! Arrrghhh....it hurts so bad. But only when it spasms. Dr. Garcia said it's myalgia from the drain tube. However that works.
Will update later once we get discharged and go back to the Marriott.
Oh....almost forgot. Sipping my first bit of gatorade for the first time post surgery. Not too bad, but honestly they had to bring it to me.....wasn't in the mood to ingest a single thing....still. I came to in my room around 6ish, and had left the surgery room around 4:20pm. So yeah, not too bad at all!
Posted July 27, 2013 - 9:40 AM
Alright, so it's 7:31am here right now and the doctor on staff today told me I'll be getting discharged today around 9ish. To be completely honest......what a relief lol! The staff here was great and all and the took care of me like you wouldn't believe but I just don't do well in hospitals lol. Gotta get out and see me some Tijuana!
Just waiting on the doc to come and take out my drain.
I became overwhelmingly tired following this post and decided that it would be in my best interests to keep my focus on my rest and healing for a bit. But I'll go into a little of what happened next. Once the doctor had taken out my drain I felt the biggest relief of my life. That horrible shoulder pain pretty much disappeared instantly! That was amazing. Left no doubt in my mind what was causing that pain from hell. The only other pain I had was related to my breathing. I would get a sharp pain and tightness when attempting to take a deep breath. The doctor said that was completely normal and expected after such surgery. They gave me a respiratory aid type contraption which was to help me clear my lungs of fluid and exercise the lungs so that I could breath easier. It helped bundles!
The only other thing I have to add regarding the procedure is a suggestion. Please remember this, it'll save you from a world of awkwardness when you see your doctor and/or anesthesiologist post-operation. It's as simple as this. DO NOT attempt to have a conversation with them as they are fondling with you're IV when you're on that operation table. I can only imagine how it must have looked to the anesthesiologist, doctor and the nurse as the anesthesia started coming on...and I'm rambling on about the weather outside or the restaurant my mother and I just visited.
"Yeah, you should definitely try it sometime...the place is greaaaa...shhh...murr?!?"
And lights out!
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