Paulie

Hi everyone, I'm Paul (Paulie), and I just joined up. I had surgery in Tijuana on June 14th after flying into San Diego that very afternoon. I just wanted to share a little about my journey and experience, figuring it may help others (especially guys) who are thinking about taking the plunge. This'll be long, as I want to share. TL;DR: - Best. Medical. Experience. EVER. I've been fat my whole post-pubescent life. I started getting chubby at 13, and through ups and downs have battled weight my entire life. I've tried NutriSystem, Weight Watchers, Atkins, just working out, and everything else I can think of. My best experience was moving to Japan with no money - a few months in a country where you don't speak the language, walk an hour to work each day in sweltering heat and have only enough coins in your pocket for rice and Water really helps the weight loss. I dropped 150 lbs (380 to 230) in 6 months, and then gained all that back over the next few years. I moved back to Canada in 2004 at about 320lbs, and swelled over the next 7 years until I was about 420 at my wedding in October of 2011. I knew I wanted to do something about my weight, having a young son and planning to have another with my wife as soon as possible. I want to be able to run and play with my kids and not be Fat Dad. Married life was very good to me, and by May of 2012, I was a hair under 490. My doctor here had recommended some form of gastric surgery for over a year, and started pushing me to lose weight this past spring. I'd heard about a local agency on the radio and sought out some reviews, and decided to take the plunge. I was determined to change my life and do it quickly. Adele at Global Healthcare Connections talked to me about my options, and I chose Dr. Kelly based on reviews my wife and I found on the web. I immediately started a liver reduction diet - 2 weeks of high Protein followed by 2 weeks of liquids right before the surgery. I was booked in for June 14th, and though nervous as all get out (I'd never so much as had a filling before), was determined to drop some weight before the surgery. I lost 22 lbs before the surgery, weighing in at 468 the day before flying out. I was headed down with another patient (Hi V!) and Adele from GHC joined us, as my wife isn't able to travel and I really wanted someone there to guide me through things. We were picked up at the San Diego airport by Cece, Dr. Kelly's wife, and whisked across the border into Tijuana. I'd been to Mexico before, and my dad had painted a colourful picture of Tijuana from his visit there in the 80's, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the city came across. Checking in at the hospital was a breeze, thanks to Omar - Dr. Kelly's majordomo and right hand man. Really, enough good things cannot be said about Omar. The main is a saint and deserves all rewards that come his way. He made me feel at ease, comfortable, and confident that surgery was going to be great, and I would be well taken care of. Settling into a room with a bed for me and a queen sized bed for my travel companion, along with my own private washroom, I was then visited by the staff. The nurses all spoke English to some degree and all were kind, caring and proficient. Within an hour of arriving, I'd had a couple of doctors visit to do an EKG or EEG or something - he stuck sticky pads on me and read how my heart was doing. My blood pressure was taken, and blood was given to back up the lab results I'd brought down from a visit to my own doctor earlier in the week. The only rough spot in my experience was getting my IV. As a fat guy, my veins aren't so visible, and when the poor young nurse tried locating a vein in my hand, she ended up piercing some muscle and sticking the needle into a bone. I can safely say that was the most pain I felt in the entire experience, and I will freely admit that I'm a big baby with no pain threshold. Thankfully, a more experienced nurse came into the room quickly, and with one painless swoop places the IV in the crook of my elbow. I was then visited by the doctor on staff - between the doctors and nurses, someone checked up on me every 30 minutes or so throughout my whole stay. When it came time for my surgery, then asked me to get onto the gurney (how do you spell that?) from my bed, and then wheeled me down the hall, humoring my requests to go faster. I entered the operating room, saw some lights and men standing over me, and remember my arms being strapped down to something as I asked "You really need to strap me down, you're not going to knock me out?" before I got a little dizzy and fell asleep. I woke up later, and there was soreness in my gut for all of 30 seconds before a nurse came in and put some pain medication in my IV. My first coherent thought was "How the hell did they move me off the gurney and back into my bed?" I had 4 incisions, the largest being just to my left side of my belly button, where my stomach was extracted. I also had a drainage tube in my left side, attached to a pouch, which led to a humorous (to me, at least) event when I first tried rolling over to get out of bed and use the washroom. I rolled onto the pouch, which popped open, blood spraying all over me and the bed and the room. It was shocking, and the nurses quickly came in and cleaned everything up, laughing at my clumsiness. Their demeanor calmed me, and the drainage tube was quickly explained. I slept quite well that night, and was walking around the hospital slowly the next day. I had no core strength and needed to be helped to sit up for the first couple of days, but felt quite good, chewing on ice as my lips and mouth were quite dry. Omar, Dr. Kelly, and the other patients were all extremely supportive and jovial. I don't want to mention other patient names to protect their privacy, but I was the only male, and there were 2 women who had surgery the same day as I did, and a group of 3 (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE ) who came in together from different parts of the US for surgery on the 15th. After recovering for the 15th and the morning of the 16th, it was time to head out - first for a barium leak test, and then to our hotel for another couple of days of recovery. The barium swallow and scan at Angeles hospital was great. It didn't taste bad at all, and we had water to wash it down with. Omar video'd the experience on an iPad and immediately emailed it to us. We received our x-rays as well as had a chance to get weighed. I was 460 on the nose, now 30 lbs down from starting - thanks to losing a heavy and large stomach pouch. We were then settled in our hotel, where I was lucky enough to have a pool-view room. What I thought was great is that Dr. Kelly provided us with a cooler of things that we could enjoy at the hospital - gatorades, other drinks, and Jello. We were also given all of our medication - pain killers, antacids, antibiotics, and something else that I can't recall right now. Treatment was not over, however. Each day both Omar and CeCe came to visit - CeCe to check on sores and rebandage anything that needed looking at, and Omar to take us out for lunch - he'd scouted out all the best broth places in town, or to take the ladies shopping. I heard that the women even received pedicures right in their rooms!! The service and care was just incredible. Though I wasn't flying out till Monday, most of the Wed/Thurs patients were leaving on Sunday, and so on Saturday night Dr. Kelly took us out to dinner - all 6 patients and their companions, along with his wife CeCe, and their son Ricardo. Of course, Omar joined us too! The fish broth was outstanding, and the food that the companions got to eat looked stellar. It was just a really great feeling to get to sit and chat with the Doctor and the other patients, and share that experience - along with some interesting entertainment from some live singers! Heading back to San Diego was quick and easy, thanks to Dr. Kelly having a medical pass for his van, allowing us to skip the giant line up at the border. Flying home was great too! For Canadian visitors, I highly recommend WestJet - the staff knew that I'd just had surgery, and were extremely accommodating (a row to myself? yes please), and Adele had arranged wheelchair and motorized transport in the Calgary airport to make it easy to catch the connecting flight. I've spent a couple of weeks recovering before starting up at work, and am down to 433 lbs already! I have so much more energy than before, and though not all my sores are healed yet (the big one is still closing, the rest have closed and are healing over) I feel optimistic, hopeful, and extremely positive about the future. I look forward to the group sessions at Global Healthcare Connections, and starting work with a trainer in the fall. My goal is to run a mini-Ironman in the summer of my 40th year - two years away. I'll keep everyone posted. Thanks for reading, and good luck to those waiting to make a change - it's already the best thing (next to getting married and being a dad) that I could've asked for in life.