Daughterinlaw

Before I begin, I want to say that in no way do I want to offend anyone here or create a negative energy, I just want to tell our family's story up to this point, and I have some information here that you may not hear anywhere else. As a Christian I speak only the truth, and have not made anything up to offend anyone who has positive things to say about this surgery, Here we go...... My mother in law had the Vertical Sleeve Surgery October 13, 2009 in Mexico with Dr Alvarez. I have to admit that when we found out the surgery was scheduled, our family was not supportive of it at all. We were very scared for her well being, safety, etc, because she is a very naive woman who has no common sense, God Bless her. She has been heavy her whole life, and it's due to a very poor diet of fast food,and pepsi. She did not correctly follow her pre op diet (surgeon did surgery anyway knowing this), so that was more cause for concern, as well as no pre-op care from a physician, or psychological counseling. She also had no post op care scheduled for when she returned, totally convinced that she would be perfectly fine and return to work a few days later, boom... lose a ton of weight, no problem. I only wish....... Against our warnings and pleas she went ahead with the surgery. I have to admit, everything seemed ok, The surgery went well, she supposedly showed no signs of complications afterwards and was released, only having minor discomfort. She drove home on a Thursday and by Saturday was not feeling well with fever......by Monday she was miserable. She was sent to the hospital by her boss, and ended up staying there 2 weeks with an abscess near the stomach, dehydration, and a UTI. We didn't find out till much later, that she did not take her antibiotics that she was given by the Dr in Mexico, nor did she comply with her Fluid intake. After being discharged after 2 weeks, she was sent home, and still was running fever and continued to not comply with medication or fluids. One week later she was back in the ER, (different hospital) where they had to transfer her to another hospital to better accommodate her. (** Another important note** Not all hospitals are staffed with a Bariatric team that can help you if you have complications, many many doctors are very hesitant to work on a patient that has had surgery in Mexico. We experienced this firsthand) There after a CAT scan and upper GI they found a Leak, along with several more abscesses. This is where we are now. She has been in the Hospital another 2 weeks now and we really aren't sure when she'll return home. She is depressed and looks horrible. She hasn't eaten a solid meal since the end of September, and still cannot handle liquids so she's being fed through IV,....I worry she'll never be the same again. Her boss got in touch with me and said not only would the insurance not cover these expenses, they upped her premium after all this started and he didn't know if he could continue to keep her on the policy. I am currently 7.5 months pregnant with my first baby,...her first grandchild, and she missed my baby shower on Sunday. She is in major debt and will most likely have to file bankrupt because now she is so behind from missing work. I am very well aware that she is a lot to blame for her complications because she did not comply with her instructions from Doctors, and this is the reason why I wrote this post. This surgery has real risks and should be taken very seriously!!!! The naive are led to believe it's so easy and so safe, and their lives will be forever changed......well that can also end up a very negative change. There should be MANDATORY evaluations, testing, and counseling for those who want this surgery to see who's ready and who's not. If my mother in law would have done this, they would have seen she was not a good candidate, and she could have avoided all this, which makes it even more frustrating. She went to Mexico because it was "cheaper",.....and now she's out the $9,000 she paid for it, on top of the tens of thousands of medical bills she's currently racking up. Like I said, she is very depressed now that she realized she did not take it serious enough, and says it's the biggest mistake of her life. Please,.....if you want to have this surgery, really consider if you have what it takes to make it through. It takes discipline, will power, patience and prayer of course. I don't ever want to see another person go through this nightmare that our family is currently going through. To all of you who have had a positive experience with VS, I congratulate you and wish you a lifetime of health and happiness, which I know is what you wanted in the first place. I hope I didn't offend anyone, I just really wanted to share this story.

Thank You all for your understanding and advice, we have tried from the beginning to get educated on what the surgery was like and tried to make sure she understood these things,... but all we got in return was " I'll be fine, that won't to me,... those other people had bad doctors that's why they had complications ". Mountain_Lover I'm so glad you read my post and stayed strong through Thanksgiving, I know it must have been hard, but you sound like a very strong lady that is ready to tackle this. We are trying very hard right now to be as supportive as we can with her, but she makes it very difficult. It's almost getting to the point of why help you when you won't help yourself kind of thing,...she's being very lazy with her own recovery and without constant reminders and pushing/coaxing from the family she is not all that willing to do it. I'm trying....... this is a very difficult time.

I thank you all for understanding and not taking offense to my story. Downinsocial, the only reason I posted this story in multiple forums is because I didn't know the appropriate place to put it at first, so I put it in a few,....I have not been a regular visitor to this website before now, so I don't know the ins and outs. My mother in law is doing much better in the hospital and is ready to go home except that she will not cooperate with keeping her nutrition up. She doesn't like the Ensure they are trying to give her and lets most of it sit there and go to waste,....hence the fact that she wasn't ready for the commitment this surgery needed. All they ask her to do is walk and get the nutrients up, and she complains like a child......she survived at least 4-5 abscesses, one leak, dehydration, and UTI........and she won't drink Ensure. This is beyond frustrating. I'm trying to be as supportive as I possible can, we call her often, my husband goes to watch football games with her, we never once have spoken negatively about her having the surgery,....as far as we are concerned, what's done is done, and now the next step is to fix it and get her healthy again. I just hope that she can make it back home before my baby is born.