My Surgery Experience

Several years ago I decided I wanted to have gastric bypass surgery. I made an appointment with a doctor. At that time my insurance rejected my request. I believe it was a blessing in disguise because I don't believe that gastric bypass would have been the best option for me. I just let it drop and went about my life. I enjoyed the time with my boys. I was homeschooling both boys at the time. I can't remember what year that was but I know that my older son was high school age. I went on HCG (as I mentioned in my first post) in August of 2009 and stayed on in until about April 2010. Then in the spring on 2012 I went on Weight Watchers. It took me three weeks to lose my first pound. And I was doing Zumba 4 or 5 days a week!! Losing weight was getting harder and harder for me!! I was beginning to give up on being able to ever lose. Several months ago my parents told me they wanted to pay for me to have the surgery. I found out that having it done in Houston would be about $25,000. My brother told me about a doctor in Tyler that was really good who would be less than half the price. I made an appointment with them and went for a group consultation. I even had my surgery date set. My brother was also planning to have the surgery. He had heard about someone who had had it done in Mexico. He got in touch with one woman and she gave him great recommendations! This was on Saturday, January 11 by late in the day Monday, January 13, we had spoken with someone with Mexico Bariatric Center. She got all the paperwork to us, we got it filled out and were approved with the date set by Monday or Tuesday. We decided to go to Puerto Vallarta for ours. The cost for both of us to have surgery plus 2 round-trip tickets was about the same as one of us to have surgery in Tyler!!
We flew out on Friday, February 14. We were met at the airport by a doctor who took us to our hotel (at the resort on the beach) for the night. We were picked up Saturday morning by another doctor and taken to a great hospital nearby!! We were treated very very well!!  We were put in private rooms. They were large rooms with a couch and a TV. Everything was neat and clean. We were able to put our things away in our rooms before we were taken to surgery! They did an EKG and some blood work and we were good to go. I told Joel that he could go first. I was as calm as I've ever been in my life!! I couldn't believe that I wasn't feeling any nervousness!! I sat in my room knitting and watching podcasts until they took me back! My biggest fear was nausea.  Nausea is a very common problem after this surgery. When they took us back to our rooms they told us we needed to walk around for 10-15 minutes every hour. This was to keep from getting blood clots in our legs and because your abdominal cavity is filled with gas for the surgery and you have to start getting it out. I didn't want to get in the bed because my nausea gets worse when I lie down. So I sat on the couch and dozed off a lot. However, I only felt nausea a couple of times and for just a couple of minutes (or less) each time! Finally, about 12 hours after surgery I felt like I could get in the bed and rest! And I did!! On Sunday they checked (with x-ray) ours stomachs to make sure there were no leaks. That was really cool to see!! Then we were taken back to the hotel to stay until we were picked back up on Wednesday to be taken back to the airport and fly back home! One of the doctors even came and took out our drains on Monday!! So we were able to walk around, go to the beach, and rest and relax for a few days!! It was truly a wonderful experience!! 
I'm so very very happy that I had the surgery and I'm also very very happy that I had it in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico!! I would recommend it to anyone!!

Shama D