"*All of my comments shown here and
elsewhere on this site are my own personal experiences and opinions and I am making no comment about what others may or may not
experience. (ObesityHelp disclaimer)
I thought Dr. Alexander was very friendly and seemed passonate about what he does. I liked that. He explained the surgury to me fully, and while he did mention the risks, he focused more on the positive aspects of having this done. He said that none of his
patients have had any serious complications. I'm not sure if that is completely believable or not. But judging from what post-ops have posted here, I feel sure he is an excellent surgeon.
His staff was adequate, but nothing outstanding. I seem to be the one doing most of the calling and proding. I am at this point waiting on his office to schedule my surgery date. That is taking longer than I thought it would or should. They are not waiting on pre-approval from my insurance because I determined that BCBS (Fed) does not do pre-approvals anymore. I found this out on my own; the insurance girl didn't know this. I do meet BCBS's criteria, though, so I'm going ahead with the surgery.
I've had my EGD, which was done by Dr. Alexander. I only saw him very briefly as I was leaving, so I have gathered no additional information about him from that.
I do have a little concern in the back of my mind that maybe he is getting more patients than he and/or his office staff can handle well. We'll see about that. I hope in the future to have more one-on-one time with Dr. Alexander. I think he really cares about his patients.
12-5-01 4:00 p.m. Well, I kept calling
(even tried calling the hospital myself)
and I finally got a date--December 27.
Hopefully, things will go smoother from
this point on.
12-27-01 6:00 P.M. My surgery which was scheduled for 7:30 that morning was finally begun. Unavoidably, Dr. Alexander had emergency surgery that had begun at 3:00 a.m. and took almost all the following day.
This could not be helped, I realize. We spent that first full day sitting in an outpatient cubicle waiting and waiting; it
was a miserable day.
I was one of the lucky ones that did not have to reschedule that day. My surgery itself went well but I had some problems with breathing and blood sugars and a alergic reaction to the mophine. It really itched and wasn't working that great. I had some wonderful nurses and some medical personnel what weren't so wonderful. All in all my care at RHD was good.
My discharge was a circus and we weren't really sure what we were to do about some of thie stuff. It is all thrown at you very quickly but several people at once. More needs to be written down, I think. I had a 3 hour ride home from the hospital becasue we live so far. It was the most horrible experience of my life; try not to do that if you can help it or unless you can get a pain shot for the trip. I'm still having PTSD from that. I go tomorrow to have my staples out and then I think in a week I'll have my hose out. It bothers me more than the staples. I am enxious to see officially how much I have lost. I think it's about 19 pounds. "
