Sharing my story with Dr Ramos Kelly
Hello,
My name is Gabby, I am a bariatric surgeon's assistant since 2005, and bariatric patient since 2 weeks ago. In all this time I have seen so many people come and have bariatric surgery, I have seen lap-band, gastric sleeve, mini-bypass patients, etc.... I have personally talked to many patients and for many years felt good about all of them, looking at their before and after pictures.
I have never thought that I was going to need this surgery. I have always struggled with my weight, but never thought of it as something serious, until I kept gaining weight and not being able to lose any, I got to the point where I wasn't even able to do exercise to help losing weight, my knees hurt and starting to have problems with high blood pressure. Last year I reached my highest weight (240lb / 42.6 BMI) so I talked to Dr Ramos Kelly about his recommendations for surgery in my case... He recommended the Gastric Sleeve. So I immediately started to introduce myself into the diet plan and Schedule my surgery for February 28, 2018. My co-workers were very supportive and helpful, I had to be on a specific pre-op diet for 2 weeks prior to my surgery and the last 3 days were of only liquids.
The day prior to the surgery my weight was 214 lb/ 38 BMI, I was admitted to the clinic on Feb 28 in the morning, I had already had my labwork, chest x-ray, and saw Dr Lopez (cardiologist) who performed my ekg and cardio evaluation, and Dr Hernandez who is the anesthesiologist. My surgery only took around 35 minutes, I only had 4 incision (because since I followed my diet to the point, my liver wasn't heavy enough so they didn't had to make the 5th incision!) I woke up and didn't felt any pain at all (which was my greatest fear), I only had a little bit of nausea which was controlled by the medication Dr Ramos Kelly indicated. Next day in the morning I woke up at 5 am and started to walk, (every time I spoke to a patient, I recommended them to walk, walk, walk, but never really knew how important was this until I got there) I also started the respiratory exercises 10 minutes every 2 hours, and was released from the clinic on Friday morning. We went to the Angeles Hospital to have the swallow test done and everything was perfect! I went home to rest that weekend and next Monday I was ready to go back to work!!! (My work is mostly administrative, so there was no contraindication for it)
I continued with my liquid diet and made it for this first 2 weeks, my weight at this moment is 197 lb / 34.98 BMI. Tomorrow I am starting my pureed food stage.
I am forever grateful with Dr Ramos Kelly and all the team for being here for me, for answering all of my question, for all the support that I have from them and for helping me get my life back.
***For all the people that is thinking about having bariatric surgery, don't wait more, this is the time to do it, get your life back. Dr Ramos Kelly is a great surgeon, he is certified as Surgeon of Excellence, Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, International Fellow of the American Society of Bariatric Surgery, Fellow of IFSO, trained as a trauma surgeon, besides he cares for his patients.
