My Dr. Jaime Ponce De Leon Experience

mikemikemike · January 8, 2015

I have been lurking this website for awhile now and figured I'd pay it forward. I was sleeved January 6th by Dr. jaime Ponce de leon and have Trish as my coordinator. Let's start from the beginning.

Had a bit of a flight delay coming out of Chicago so didn't arrive in San Diego until after 1. Trish's sons were there to pick my up and promptly took me to see Trish. Shortly after meeting Trish I as brought into my room at INT. It had been building but at this point I was TERRIFIED. I had never had a surgery until now and there could have been a number of reasons for it but my pulse was through the roof, as was my BP, and I was sweating. They told me they were going to give me something to relax, not sure if that happened. They took me into surgery and the fear didn't go away. The anesthesia acted quickly and next thing I knew I was in recovery feeling like someone was sitting on my stomach. I made it back to my room where I began to bargain with everyone to let me get up and walk. I don't recall if I fell asleep at all but it didn't take me very long to get up and walk around. I read all the stories that walking would help with dissolving the gas. I was in a sort of a trance most of the rest of that day and definitely needed the drugs to help me sleep. I threw up some brown bile/acid/whatever concoction as soon as I laid down for bed. I did feel a little better after.

The next morning I was doing good. I took a shower and spoke to Dr. Ponce's assistant who is great. I got up pretty early so my day 2 was looong. I didn't realize the importance of that breathing exercise thing until late in day 2. Use it! I was really bored and had cabin fever most of the day. There really isn't a lot of room to walk around and I didn't find anyone else that spoke great english to talk to. It didn't bring a companion and it was a bit lonely. Again, I needed the drugs to fall asleep and started to get some acid(I think) back up that needed to be dealt with.

I am sitting in bed now on day three waiting for my leak tests and am ecstatic about getting out of the hospital. The smell of the cafeteria and disinfectant make me nauseous.

INT is not a bad place, much smaller than any hospital I've dealt with in the US. Everyone seems to know what they are doing, they are nice, but there is a language barrier. I speak very bad spanish.

So where am I at now? Standing on the bottom of the hill that is the post op diet(yet to be discussed). I had some big regrets yesterday but I am trying to tell myself this is all for the best. I am looking forward to the new me. Any words of wisdom or tips are greatly appreciated.

To those looking for any tips, here are mine: Like many have said bring comfy clothes and sandals for the hospital. Bring a laptop, the TV is non existent. If you know how to use a VPN, that also benefit that. At least one extra pillow. The beds are a bit rough. Better soap for the shower would have been nice. Like I said, use the breath exercise thing as much as possible and when in bed I found keeping my knees bend very helpful. I definitely did not sleep with the bed flat. Make a list of things you think you'll miss and try to eat them before your preop diet. Stay away from walking around the cafeteria.

That's all I've got for now, here's to hoping the leak tests go well.