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Surgeon TestimonialCharles Ferguson, M.D.I absolutely adore Dr. Ferguson. He is a wonderful, friendly, kind, funny man. Not to mention an amazingly skilled surgeon. He was all over the local press for a while this year because of a high-profile lawsuit, which was going on during the time of my presurgical process, which resulted in some postponements in my surgery. This caused me some frustration, but it never caused me to doubt his abilities, and thankfully (and justly) he prevailed in the courtroom. rnrnI sailed through surgery thanks to his skill and I'm so grateful to him that I'm on the other side of this process and can now start my new life!rnrnSince he also represents the MGH Weight Center here, I'll mention that as well. As a weight management center, they are superb. They offer top-notch medical care there. I highly recommend them. Not only do they have the best in their fields working there, they are on the cutting edge of obesity research thanks to their leader, Dr. Lee Kaplan. They are simply the best. rnrnAs a medical office, they leave much to be desired. I, and many people I have talked to, have had many difficulties with office staff: Rudeness, unreturned phone calls, scheduling problems, billing issues, etc. They just don't seem very competent. That being said, I wouldn't let that stop me from going there. I go there for medical care, and I'm not going to get better care elsewhere. Their program is simply the best around. The other stuff is frustrating and dampens the experience somewhat, but I had the best surgeon one could have and excellent care so I've done with griping. Hopefully they'll straighten out those snags and make the experience there more pleasant and a little less frustrating. The positives by far outweigh the negatives.rnrnSo there it is, the good and the bad. Definitely don't let the bad scare you off. It seems frustrating at the time, but anything you have to put up with is so worth it for the security of knowing that you have the best medical minds and surgical hands caring for you. I highly recommend both Dr. Ferguson and the MGH Weight Center.rn |
Post-Op Day 6 on September 25, 2007 9:52 am
Well, after lots of postponements and disappointments, I'm finally on the other side. My surgery was 6 days ago. I've been home from the hospital for 3 days and I'm feeling pretty good. Aside from the normal post-op pain, my biggest concern is nighttime reflux, which has been a bit distressing. But compared to what can happen, I'm happy.
I'm off pain meds, which is great. I take an occasional Tylenol, but that's it. After overusing the morphine in the hospital, it feels good to be drug-free. I didn't overdose, but over-sedated myself and I just didn't like how it felt. I had an episode when I didn't use the morphine enough and had severe pain that they had to give me a heavy dose to get under control. I was so afraid of having that happen again that I kept dosing myself with the morphine whether I needed it or not and ended up really over-dosed, but not overdosed. I was just way too stoned and really hated how it made me feel, and I'm glad it's all out of my system now.
I felt truly like crap for a few days. You don't think about that before the surgery, and that's probably a good thing. There's pain, and at the time you think you can't bear it, but you really can, and you do, and it's over before you know it. Part of the problem is that in the first few days after surgery time seems to slow down so it seems like you're going to be in pain forever. An hour feels like a week so it all feels like it's never going to end. But now that I'm a few days past it, it seems like it went by really fast. It's just a perceptual thing brought on by the anesthesia and pain meds. It's disorienting. I just kept telling myself that tomorrow would be better, and it was true. Each day I felt better than the day before, and now 6 days out, I feel pretty good! Amazing.
I have to say that the care at the hospital was astounding. They were wonderful! I never expected to receive that level of care at a huge city hospital. I expected overworked, understaffed, stressed out nurses who were skilled but just didn't have the time to attend to everyone's needs. What I got was nurses who came the minute you called and spent as much time with you as you needed, and more if they could. They were cheerful and friendly and genuinely cared for their patients. I expect that the patient/nurse ratio is very low, so that the nurses can spend a lot of time actually CARING for them. I have friends who have had their surgeries at other hospitals, and they either felt abused by the staff or abandoned by them. I can't speak highly enough about the staff where I was.
So here I am, doing my diet, sipping Crystal Lite by the gallon, resting, taking short walks, recuperating. I have my 1st weigh-in next Monday. I won't weigh myself until then. Hopefully I'll do well.
Cheers!
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Postponed AGAIN!!!!! on August 9, 2007 4:14 pm
I can't believe this. I got a call yesterday from the Weight Center
and they have postponed my surgery again. This is the 2nd time. I'm so
frustrated I want to scream! One of my friends on this website with the same surgeon had her surgery last week, and she's never been postponed, and I've been put off twice. What is the deal with this?????
I can understand the whole trial thing. I wasn't happy about it, but I
can at least understand it. But she swore to me that the new date was
solid, then she calls me yesterday and tells me that Dr. Ferguson
won't be available and has to put me off 2 more weeks.
I'm so upset right now I just feel like this whole thing just isn't
meant to be and walking away from it.
I really expected better from a facility like MGH. If I had know I was
going to be jerked around so much I would have gone somewhere else.
She even told me that she couldn't promise that I wouldn't be
postponed again. I'm just about ready to give up.
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Walking Across America on August 7, 2007 5:59 pm
Yes, I'm going to walk across America. On my computer, anyway. With the help of this cool website that I found, you can track your miles, whether walking, running, or cycling, and log them into their site and it will map them on a virtual route across America, 4063 miles. It even shows you pictures of the towns you're passing through. It's pretty cool. So far I haven't actually gone anywhere. I'm standing around in Yorktown, VA (the starting point), thanks to a 2-week migraine that has me in bed and on lots of drugs. But as soon as the pain subsides, I'll be starting my trek across the lovely state of Virginia.
I don't know how long it will take me to walk 4000+ miles. I expect it will take quite a while. Right now I get winded going once around the block. Hopefully after surgery the miles will rack up a little faster. Now I can't imagine turning in more than a mile a week. Surgery is now less than a month away. I'd like to say that I can do it in a year, but I don't know. I'm going to make that my goal. I think I can do that. Wish me luck. I've got a long road ahead of me!
http://exercise.lbl.gov/index.html
Before Pics on August 1, 2007 3:27 pm
Well, I took my official 'Before' pics this past weekend. Boy was that an eye-opener. If I ever had any doubts about having surgery, doing that erased every one of them.
It's not that I didn't know I was fat. At over 300 pounds, it's a hard fact to avoid. But when I dress in the morning, do my hair, I look to see if there's anything out of place, make sure that I don't look absolutely horrible, and that's about it. I've worked very hard in recent years to like myself. I used to look in the mirror, even when I had a great body, and hate what I saw. Ironically, when I was very thin, I thought I was obese. I thought I was monstrous. If I had known then that I would eventually become obese, I would have appreciated it more. In my quest to become more sane, I've worked extremely hard at liking myself, inside and out, and have learned to accept what I see in the mirror. It wasn't until my weight began to affect my health that I decided to have WLS.
So donning skivvies (for my own personal reference pictures) and a swimsuit (for the pictures that I will post online and show others) and allowing a friend to photograph me in all my glory was a jarring experience. What you see in the mirror is never the same as what you see in photographs. And having someone photograph you from across the room, and from the side and back, gives you views that you just can't get on your own in front of the looking glass.
My feelings upon viewing these pictures were grim. I was looking at a young, vibrant woman trapped in a sick body. That person wasn't me.
I feel so relieved that I'm doing something to take back my life and give myself a chance at health. I want my youth back. I'm too young to be so old.
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My Surgeon On Trial on July 20, 2007 11:38 am
It's been all over the news here. It's on ESPN, Sports Illustrated, the National News: Charlie Weis, former assistant coach of the New England Patriots, current coach of Notre Dame, is suing the surgeon who performed his gastric bypass. That surgeon, Charles Ferguson, happens to be the surgeon who will be performing my surgery in a little over 6 weeks.
The surgery was performed at Mass General here in Boston where I live, so the news coverage here has been more intense than elsewhere. Then again, I have a pretty vested interest in the story. If you believe the news coverage, this fiendish butcher, wielding a stapler that he bought for a $1.99 from Office Depot, hacked poor Charlie's insides to pieces, then went vacationing on the Vineyard, leaving Weis to bleed to death in the hands of uncaring doctors who don't know their asses from a hole in the ground.
None of the media remember to mention the part where Weis wanted next-day surgery. Because of his status, it seems that he was allowed to bypass (pun intended) all of the required preliminary testing and dieting and counseling and waiting that us regular folk are subjected to. I first requested my PCP for a referral in December, 2006. My surgery is scheduled for September, 2007 (rescheduled from August to September thanks to Mr. Weis' lawsuit, thanks Charlie). That's a waiting time of 10 months. That's pretty average. And I'm fortunate enough to not have insurance hassles. Some people wait a lot longer.
I also expect to have to sign a lot of waivers explaining that internal bleeding is a possible complication of gastrointestinal surgery, as are respiratory problems, complications from anesthesia, death, etc., all possible risks of surgery.
I read in several of the news articles that Mr. Weis is quoted as calling himself a stupid ass, or words to that effect, because he had weight loss surgery. He's not a stupid ass for having weight loss surgery. He's a stupid ass for thinking that WLS is a risk-free, easy and fast fix to a complicated problem. If he had done any research into surgery as a reasonable solution for his problem, he would have known that there is a statistical chance of risk, which increases pretty significantly with every comorbidity. The sicker you are going in, the likelier you are have problems coming out. One person in every 500 or so is going to have a problem. He drew that short straw. Bad luck. Get over it. He survived. Some don't.
I feel bad that Mr. Weis got sick, as I would feel bad for anyone else who got sick. It's a known complication of the surgery. I don't believe the surgeons were negligent. Maybe if Charlie had had to wait 10 months for surgery and go through the same preoperative program that I, and all the other patients have to go through, things might have turned out very differently for him. I think the only mistake the doctors made was in accepting him as a patient in the first place.
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