"I am 20 years old and a few months ago I was 280 lbs at five foot 6. I found out that my insurance would not cover the surgery, so my parents and I checked out Mexico and found Dr. Joya. We went for it! On February 10 we flew down to Mexico. A car met us at the airport and someone was there holding a sign with my name on it! We were taken to the Sunset Plaza Resort, an UNBELIEVABLE hotel (And I have stayed in very nice hotels, but this was just stunning!) the next morning (monday, the 11th) we went to Amerimed, the private hospital. It has a clean, modern interior. They tested my blood to see if I was okay for surgery and voila! Me and my parents were taken up to my room (which was huge, it had an anteroom with a modern sofa, desk and TV, updated bathroom, then a long hallway that led to the main part of the room which had bed, nice sofa, an arm chair, and a flat screen (that had a few channels in English like CNN, I'm sure there were more that we didn't find, several hundred channels). In the late afternoon I made Dr. Joya who talked to me and my family for a few minutes. I was then taken to surgery (gastric bypass, laparascopic). I woke up feeling a bit ill, which lasted through the night. The next day, Dr. Joya came into see me and elected to give me an endoscopy to see if this would clear a blockage. It did the trick and I felt GREAT--for a few hours. After that I became nauseaus and vomitted all night; Dr. Joya was contacted around four AM. He quickly assembled his surgery staff and by five I was under anesthesia again. It turned out that they performed another endoscopy and found another blockage much further down. Dr. Joya went a little further with the camera and discovered that my bowel had twisted. Of the complications you can have with this surgery, this one is fairly common. Dr. Joya corrected the problem, and it didn't cost us anything since we chose to do the Complications Fund (which I highly reccomend)I was supposed to leave the hospital Thursday (I think) but because I had a second surgery, I stayed until Sunday. Dr. Joya came to see me two to three time a day, not to mention one of his collegues would come to see me every hour or two. The nurses were great and most spoke ok good English. Shout out to my favorite! Can't remember his name right now (had it a few minutes ago...) heavy-set with black glasses. I left the hospital that sunday and returned to Sunset Plaza where my dad (who would go back to sleep there at night) made friends with some of the staff, they were so excited to see me and said they were hoping I would leave the hospital soon! Roberto and Diego ALWAYS asked me how I was doing if they saw me. When it came time to eat I first had a broth from chicken noddle soup, but for some reason nothing else sounded good. The staff got very involved in our search for sugar free popsickles. My dad finally found some at Wal-Mart (yes they have one, and a Costco, too!.) on Monday I had a check up with Dr. Joya and Natalie (the dietician) and then we flew home Tuesday. I continued to face nausea and ate very little though. We contacted Dr. Joya's office and he said I needed another endoscopy and that I should go to the ER. We went and they were unable to do the procedure. Dr. Joya talked to the ER docs on the phone to discuss my situation, which was great. However, they found out I had low potassium. They started giving me potassium through an IV but when you have low potassium and it goes through the IV too fast, you have something very similar to an allergic reaction. My feet and hands clenched shut, my neck, back and shoulders spasmed, my throat started closing up. They didn't know at the time that it was because they gave it to me so quickly, so they took out the potassium IV and I was left worse than when I came in, single most painful experiance of my life. The following Monday I began to have a repeat experiance at home. We called 911 and I was taken to a great doctor at the ER. He explained that this happens when you have low potassium (SO BEWARE; MAKESURE YOU GET ENOUGH POTASSIUM!) and he then called the local bariatric surgeon who was located twenty minutes away (I had called that doctors office before the surgery and asked if he could do the followup care, they said they couldn't take me on until 1 year post op) turns out that was the opinion of the hospital system, not the surgeon, and when he heard my story, he took me on! They did medical transport to get me to his hospital and I was kept there for two days. Once I was taken home and forcing myself to eat, I became less nauseous. Two weeks after that I had a kidney stone. Icing on the cake. Dr. Joya is great; the problem is he can't really provide follow-up care. You truly need it, I don't care what anyone says: you NEED a doctor post-op to work with. Everything worked out for me because the local bariatrician took me on. I would absolutely recommend Dr. Joya, just make sure you have follow up care!I am nearly two months out and have lost about 34 lbs since I started the liquid diet. Good luck to you, and feel free to message me any questions about Dr. Joya or my experiance so far post surgery!"
