I'll just get right to the point. DO NOT GET YOUR SURGERY here! They almost killed me. The only person who was decent to me was the receptionist, and after that it was all downhill. The nurse that I was introduced to, Nora, was the first member of the OR team that I met, and when I told her about a condition that I have that they needed to be aware of, instead of reading my doctors note or paying any attention to what I said, she basically said she didn't have time. When I told her it could be a life and death situation, instead of reading the letter I had printed out from my doctor, she asked me if I had my advanced directives. I said to her "Oh, so you're gonna plan for my death instead of making sure that I live?" I told her that my surgeon felt confident that I could advise the OR team about the precautions I needed, and when she asked me if my doctor had signed the letter! I am a Kaiser member, and I have never had this type of experience at Kaiser. I have been through two procedures at Kaiser with no issue and everyone complying with what I need because it's not that hard. She just felt like being difficult and that's when I got the idea they just wanted to rush me out of there from the get-go. She told me they didn't even have time to give me a Benadryl and I argued that the anesthesiologist could give it to me in the IV.
After that, I had the displeasure of meeting, Dr. Black, the anesthesiologist, whom pretended to look at my airway, but missed my huge tonsils. When I brought it to his attention, he joked that maybe they should take them out. I told him I was very concerned because I don't have a lot of room and he told me it was going to hurt and there was nothing he could really do about it. If I hadn't trusted my surgeon to pick this place to have my surgery, I would have gotten up and walked right about then.
Dr. Black went on to talk about how he is really the anti-nausea anesthesiologist and not so much about the pain relief. I told him that was very concerning since my surgery involved cutting my face where there are lots of nerve endings. He said he would give me a lot of locals, and that he would send me home with Zofran, anti-nausea medication.
Post surgery I was sent home without medical staff making sure I could urinate, and I had problems later because they had used a catheter. I could not rest when I got home because I felt like a knife was going through my throat into my jaw. I also thought that my tooth might be cracked. It was obvious that Dr. Black was really rough with me and my blood pressure was high when they released me, probably because I was in pain.
Five hours of being on the table, and they told my caretaker to just "drunk walk" me into my home. They did not make sure I could take down water, they did not make sure I was safe. I have never heard medical staff use that kind of terminology, especially not knowing what kind of situation I was coming home to - whether there were three stories of stairs or what not. I just know I was in a world of hurt and they told my caretaker they were not on top of my blood pressure, and that it was high yet they released me.
I was in so much pain that I started becoming nauseous. I could not sit down nor lay down because I was starting to have problems breathing and I was in so much pain. I tried to take the Norco that my doctor had given me, but I couldn't hold it down Because the pain was already so intense that my system rejected it. At that point my caregiver and I both realized we had no Zofran and that Dr. Black did not send me home with any so my caregiver looked through some of his old medicine and found some Zofran for me, but it didn't work at that point, and it was obvious I was having an emergency.
I started bleeding out the back of my head and developed a huge blood hematoma which started cutting off my airway and led me back to the hospital after going to the ER for five more hours of surgery. I literally was almost almost dead. By the time I got there to the ER, I had almost no oxygen in my system Because my airway was being completely blocked. Both of the numbers I had gotten to call in case of emergency after the surgery did not work. My caregiver kept calling and one had voicemail and the other didn't but nobody was checking voicemail and no one called us back.
Sutter staff just wanted to get their money and get me out of there. It was an elective procedure and I paid a lot of money - thousands of dollars to almost lose my life to people who are just greedy and think the Hippocratic oath is a joke. Dr. Black I'm looking at you. read more