Eureta G.
The True Story about Adrienne Crist
Feb 11, 2008
I am so sorry that you have had so many problems with your Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy. However, I was there at the facility while you were going through part of some of your problems. I arrived on Wednesday and you had your surgery on Monday. At that time you were doing great and you were raving about Dr. Huacuz and his staff. You said that the surgery went great and that you had so much respect for the doctor and just could not get over how much attention that he gave his patients. You felt like you had made the right decision by going there. You came into Jim's room several times to tell him your experience with them and that he had nothing to worry about. From what I remember you were scheduled to go home and the night before the doctor gave you an anti-acid for you to let dissolve in your mouth and you swallowed it which tore open the gastrectomy.. You kept apologizing for swallowing the pill and that you were afraid that opened up your gastrectomy. As you and I know there is a 1% to 2% ratio of leakage even without swallowing anything. I have actually seen the gastrectomy done in surgery and when you have to go back in and repair a leak it is difficult. The tissue is so soft and this makes it difficult to repair. Sometimes it will just not hold.
You also mentioned that Jim was in surgery for 6 hours and that you thought he was too tired to do the surgery, because it was so late. The reason that it took so long was because Jim had to have 3 hernia repairs, an old gastric band which had scar tissue around it, and then the gastrectomy. He knew all of this before the surgery. Jim comes out of surgery at l:30 in the morning. The doctor came into his room before Jim came back from recovery where Jim's wife, Natalie and myself were waiting. He told us then that Jim was a very difficult man to work on because of his weight, but that everything went well. Jim lives in Houston where I live and his wife and I are very good friends. I saw him at a New Years Eve party and he has lost 75 lbs. since June and feels great. He has nothing but wonderful things to say about Dr. Huacuz and is so glad that he had the surgery done.
In May of 2007 Jim's wife, Natalie, myself, and our best friend Jan went to Dr. Huacuz for surgery. I had LapBand by Dr. Huacuz in October of 2006. My friends saw how much weight that I had lost and decided to go and have Lap Band surgery. Since my friends were there and would be with me, I felt that since I had already lost most of my weight, I would have a tummy tuck and a breast lift. Dr. Huacuz advised me to wait longer, but I was persistant about having it done while they were there. Sixteen years prior to this I had ruptured implants removed from my breast. I did not realize and that the plastic surgeon that performed my surgery left the capsules in. When the plastic surgeon at Dr. Huacuz's facility did my breast lift, he had to remove the capsules which caused compromise of the breast tissue and the tissue started dying which caused an infection. I had only been home for two days when this happened. My daughter talked with Dr. Huacuz for two days letting him know what was going on with my breast and he kept telling her that I needed to come back so that he could take care of me. I flew back to Tijuana and when I arrived the doctor was waiting for me. He examined my breast and took me back to surgery and opened my breast up to clean them out. For three weeks every morning and every evening the breast were cleaned and the dead tissue was removed until new tissue grew back in. Twice during this time I was taken back to surgery to be cleaned out because it was to painful not to do this under anesthesia. Once a week the plastic surgeon would come in to check my breast. The last time I saw him was to close the breast up. The whole time that I was there I was on heavy doses of antibiotics. The problem with my surgery started with the doctor in Houston, not Dr. Huacuz. A plastic surgeon did my breast lift, not Dr. Huacuz. However when I had the problem Dr. Huacuz and his staff took care of me every step of the way. I am so thankful that he was there for me.
Since your surgery Dr. Huacuz has performed several sleeve gastrectomies and they have all been successful. A doctor can have 300 successful surgeries, but if he has one that does not go as planned there will be someone out there saying negative things about them. It doesn't matter if the surgery is performed in the United States or Mexico there are certain risk with any surgery. I know three gastric bypass patients that were performed by prominent Bariatric Surgeons in Houston that have died. The doctors just could not figure out what was wrong with them. They did everything that they medically thought they could do. It does not mean that they were bad surgeons.
You said that God had given you a sign that you needed to go into San Diego to the hospital there and I can appreciate your decision and I am glad that you got well. I do believe that God leads us to do certain things in our life and that is the reason that I am answering your post. In the month that I stayed in the Huacuz Surgical Center and all of the times that I have been there taking my friends there for various weight loss surgeries I had the opportunity to get to know Dr. Huacuz and his whole staff personally. Seeing the way the Doctor treats his patients with such respect and the amount of time that he spends with them and how caring he is about them, I felt the need to explained the way I feel about Dr. Huacuz and what went on while I was in his care. It has now been 14 months since my Lap Band surgery, I have lost l00 lbs. and I feel great. I have referred 20 patients to him for Lap Band Surgery and two for Vertical Sleeves and none of them have had any problems and are having great success with their weight loss. Take care and may God Bless you in your journey to reaching your weight loss goal.
You also mentioned that Jim was in surgery for 6 hours and that you thought he was too tired to do the surgery, because it was so late. The reason that it took so long was because Jim had to have 3 hernia repairs, an old gastric band which had scar tissue around it, and then the gastrectomy. He knew all of this before the surgery. Jim comes out of surgery at l:30 in the morning. The doctor came into his room before Jim came back from recovery where Jim's wife, Natalie and myself were waiting. He told us then that Jim was a very difficult man to work on because of his weight, but that everything went well. Jim lives in Houston where I live and his wife and I are very good friends. I saw him at a New Years Eve party and he has lost 75 lbs. since June and feels great. He has nothing but wonderful things to say about Dr. Huacuz and is so glad that he had the surgery done.
In May of 2007 Jim's wife, Natalie, myself, and our best friend Jan went to Dr. Huacuz for surgery. I had LapBand by Dr. Huacuz in October of 2006. My friends saw how much weight that I had lost and decided to go and have Lap Band surgery. Since my friends were there and would be with me, I felt that since I had already lost most of my weight, I would have a tummy tuck and a breast lift. Dr. Huacuz advised me to wait longer, but I was persistant about having it done while they were there. Sixteen years prior to this I had ruptured implants removed from my breast. I did not realize and that the plastic surgeon that performed my surgery left the capsules in. When the plastic surgeon at Dr. Huacuz's facility did my breast lift, he had to remove the capsules which caused compromise of the breast tissue and the tissue started dying which caused an infection. I had only been home for two days when this happened. My daughter talked with Dr. Huacuz for two days letting him know what was going on with my breast and he kept telling her that I needed to come back so that he could take care of me. I flew back to Tijuana and when I arrived the doctor was waiting for me. He examined my breast and took me back to surgery and opened my breast up to clean them out. For three weeks every morning and every evening the breast were cleaned and the dead tissue was removed until new tissue grew back in. Twice during this time I was taken back to surgery to be cleaned out because it was to painful not to do this under anesthesia. Once a week the plastic surgeon would come in to check my breast. The last time I saw him was to close the breast up. The whole time that I was there I was on heavy doses of antibiotics. The problem with my surgery started with the doctor in Houston, not Dr. Huacuz. A plastic surgeon did my breast lift, not Dr. Huacuz. However when I had the problem Dr. Huacuz and his staff took care of me every step of the way. I am so thankful that he was there for me.
Since your surgery Dr. Huacuz has performed several sleeve gastrectomies and they have all been successful. A doctor can have 300 successful surgeries, but if he has one that does not go as planned there will be someone out there saying negative things about them. It doesn't matter if the surgery is performed in the United States or Mexico there are certain risk with any surgery. I know three gastric bypass patients that were performed by prominent Bariatric Surgeons in Houston that have died. The doctors just could not figure out what was wrong with them. They did everything that they medically thought they could do. It does not mean that they were bad surgeons.
You said that God had given you a sign that you needed to go into San Diego to the hospital there and I can appreciate your decision and I am glad that you got well. I do believe that God leads us to do certain things in our life and that is the reason that I am answering your post. In the month that I stayed in the Huacuz Surgical Center and all of the times that I have been there taking my friends there for various weight loss surgeries I had the opportunity to get to know Dr. Huacuz and his whole staff personally. Seeing the way the Doctor treats his patients with such respect and the amount of time that he spends with them and how caring he is about them, I felt the need to explained the way I feel about Dr. Huacuz and what went on while I was in his care. It has now been 14 months since my Lap Band surgery, I have lost l00 lbs. and I feel great. I have referred 20 patients to him for Lap Band Surgery and two for Vertical Sleeves and none of them have had any problems and are having great success with their weight loss. Take care and may God Bless you in your journey to reaching your weight loss goal.
