Hi everyone,

I am six days out from surgery with Dr. Aceves in Mexicalli, and finally have a few free minutes so I thought I would tell about my experience for the people that have surgeries coming up.

I arrived on Friday in San Diego and was planning to take the van that Dr. Aceves provides, but my husband wanted to visit his daughter in So Cal while I was recovering, so we decided to rent a car. The car rental place required extra insurance for the days the vehicle was in Mexico ($25.00 for 24 hours), or we could park the car at a lot on the California side of the border and either take a cab, walk, or see if the van was available to pick us up. We decided to drive and the hospital was easy to find and had a small parking lot in the back with a security guard.

When we arrived at the hospital, I told the front desk clerk I was a patient of Dr. Aceves and they had us wait in a waiting area for a few minutes until Dr. Aceves' nurse arrived. She drew labs, urine sample, ekg, and x-rays within a half hour of us being there and we waited a few more minutes then Dr. Aceves arrived. We (my husband and I) talked with him for about a half hour to forty five minutes where he explained the surgery, and how to be sucessful after surgery. Next the anthestologist came and explained what would happen during the surgery, how long I would be unconsious and about the spinal block. After that, the internist came and talked to us a little more about the surgery. Ms. Yolanda showed up after that and gave us a packet to read through, and she completed the paperwork and took the money order for the surgery. Oh, all of this was in english, so we had no issues understanding anything.

After that, she told us to forget about the preop diet that night, and go have a nice dinner. I was scheduled for an early morning (0700) surgery, which they don't usually do, so she ask if we were willing to stay at the hospital that night instead of going to the motel. I was wanting to get the surgery done as soon as possible, so we stayed at the hospital. We ate at an italian resturant a couple of blocks from the hospital, and despite the things you hear about safety in Mexico, we did not feel uncomfortable at all walking to the resturant or sitting and eating the meal. It cost about $35 dollars for the two of us to eat and the food was fantastic. They gave the bill in both pecos and american dollars, so there was no confusion.

Back at the hospital, I met Jennifer (momof3girls) from this forum who was walking the hallways after having surgery that day. She was very sweet and was moving around well for having just had surgery that day. At about 9PM, Dr. Aceves arrived at the hospital to check on his patients and his nurse gave me a shot in my stomach which was an anticoagulant (spelling).

The next morning, they gave me a pill to take to relax and then rolled me back to the room for surgery. They put an IV in and turned me on my side for the spinal block I was VERY nervous about the spinal, but I barely felt it. After that I don't remember anything until I was back in my room, and my husband was kissing me goodbye so that he could go visit the grandkids while I recovered the next couple of days.

The next couple of days was just walking, resting and sipping on Water. To me the worst part was removal of the drain tube. It did not hurt, and only took a few seconds, but it felt VERY strange. I did feel better and had less pain in my side after it was taken out, but it felt wierd when it was pulled out.

Anyway, that is about it, it was pretty uneventful (thankfully), the hospital was nice, and very clean. I had a cleaning lady in my room at least two times a day cleaning up. If anyone that is going to Dr. Aceves has any questions about the experience, please let me know. I am very happy with the procedure and the experience at the hospital so I am glad to talk about it.

Of course not the hard part is not eating anything for 10 days. This clear liquid thing is tough. I never realized how much I thought about food, or how easy it was for me to go get what ever food I was craving anytime I wanted it.

Anyway, sorry about the long post, I just wanted to share my experience and pay forward all the advice I recieved before my surgery.

Cheers everyone!

Kelly

Mi-Mi, they don't do a spinal block as your anesthesia, they use IV anesthesia same as we do here, they just don't use any anesthetic gas. The spinal is for pain medication, much the same as an epidural for women in labor. It's for pain control postop, and it worked wonderfully. Honestly, I didn't have hardly any pain postop and am VERY pleased with Dr. Aceves and his staff. :smile1:

hey to all! i did a new post inquiring about doc aceves because i'm also considering backing out of my surgery that's already scheduled here locally and going to him.

i notice a spinal block was mentioned.... any particular reason why they do that instead of using the kind of anesthesia we use here? i'm not sure how i feel about it. i haven't heard anything about it from my surgeon here. that makes me nervous all over again! LOL!

The spinal block is actually the recommended standard of care for obese patients in this country, and one of the main reasons is it allows the anesthesiologist to use less general anesthesia. Obese persons need a lot more general anesthesia to be put to sleep, because of our weight. Getting less general anesthesia is a lot safer, you wake up quicker, and have less possible anesthesia side effects, less chance of pneumonia, less time being immobile. The spinal also does a great job of pain control. I had the spinal by Dr Aceves' anesthesiologist, and they left it in until the day I was discharged, so I could get meds through the tube during my hospital stay. It was great.