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Replaced One Issue with Another
I had long awaited neck surgery done in May 2020, with Dr David Santos. I had been struggling for years with a neck band that was hanging too low and it affected my self esteem every single day. I interviewed many surgeons and made the final decision to have Dr Santos do the surgery; in much part I made this decision based on great office staff...and an unfortunately short meeting with Dr Santos (my MISTAKE).
Immediately after surgery I had a horrible reaction to the medications I'd been given and began throwing up. Throwing up forces one to have their head down, a horrible position for someone who just had face and neck surgery. The nurse seemed VERY concerned, my husband was panicky, the anesthesiologist stated right away that he could give me "reversal drugs" to stop the reactions, yet Dr Santos said I'd be "fine", and he rushed us out of the recovery room and off to our hotel.
After a few hours I was still throwing up and my husband called the doctor. Dr Santos again said I should just rest, drink water and try to wait it out....but I was continuing to throw up, not able to even keep water down. The pain from the surgery was immeasurable due to the increased inflammation from having my head down to throw up, yet this was of no concern to this doctor. Again the anesthesiologist said he'd come by and give me reversal drugs yet he had to have Dr Santos blessing to do this, and he could not get it.
Later that afternoon I had to be rushed to Swedish hospital, I could not stop throwing up, I was too dizzy to even stand up and I was feeling numb all throughout my entire body. My husband called the doctor to let him know, and he stated he'd try to meet us at the hospital, but he didn't show up. The anesthesiologist stated that HE would come down there but again, Dr Santos would not give him permission to do so.
I was at Swedish for HOURS, it was a HORRIBLE experience and yet still Dr Santos did not show up. The hospital did give me reversal drugs to stop the throwing up and 3 rounds of IV fluids.
The next morning was my followup visit with Dr Santos. I was still pretty "out of it", not overly aware of all that was going on, due to the pain medications. My face was incredibly puffy, blown way up due to the inflammation from 24hours of throwing up after head and neck surgery. Dr Santos, at the appointment, made a comment about the hospitals not respecting plastic surgeons so me going there made him "look bad". He did a VERY quick check of the incisions, wrapped my head and we were out the door for our long drive home (we live 2 hours away).
Once we were home, I thew up a couple more times until we realized the antibiotics were causing it for the most part. My husband texted Dr Santos about stopping the antibiotics and he said that would be fine. I was in incredible pain, not due to the overall surgery, but due to the inflammation from the throwing up, my face was huge ! That weekend I studied online, videos and documents, related to what I went through. I emailed 2 surgeons who seemed to have alot of very detailed videos and documents on all that I was dealing with, one in New York, one in Florida. Immediately BOTH emailed me back, on this, a weekend, to a stranger ! They were very open about what I was dealing with and had some suggestions. One of them had me call him Monday when he was back in office (which I did, and we spoke for over an hour on Zoom).
Not once all weekend did Dr Santos call or even text to check on me, to see that all was well. I emailed them on Monday, and I didn't hear back until Wednesday. That Friday marked one week and I went back for my one week checkin. Dr Santos didn't seem concerned about all that I was dealing with, the HUGE puffy head, the pain due to that, the fact that his decision to NOT allow the reversal drugs is what caused this, the thick "rope" tube under the skin on the left side of my neck that looked awful.....none of it. He said MULTIPLE times how he knew what he was doing, had done over 4500 of these...more concerned about defending himself than addressing the issues and admitting that things should have been handled MUCH differently.
After a month I was asking about therapies that could assist in the healing process as I had to go back to work, yet I was NOT looking presentable. In the initial interview when I first met Dr Santos, he insisted I'd be back at work in 2 weeks, with easy ability to hide scars with my hair. My face was now so stretched out that I looked like a bloated frog...I did SO much crying, yet that hurt so I had to be careful.
Dr Santos agreed to do some Lazar Massage style therapy on my neck. Initially he said I'd have to pay for this but I was so angry about being made to pay to fix HIS mistake, agreed to a few months of this therapy. I live 2 hours from his office, so every other week for a couple of months, my husband and I made the trip to Seattle, basically taking up the entire day, for the 40 minutes of therapy.
After 3 months I did not see any differences with the therapy and Dr Santos mildly mentioned other therapies yet insisted I make yet another appointment to discuss them....so yet another trip which takes basically the entire day. At this point that part of Seattle was in the CHOP zone, so not a safe area to be, in any way, for anyone.
I made it clear that the left side of my neck looked awful, the thick ropey look was still there, the skin on that side wasn't tight as the right side, you could feel stitches wanting to come through the skin on that side, the skin on the left side looked "crepey" (spelling of that word ?). I mentioned this several times via email and one time when one of his nurses called me about an appointment she thought I had that Friday, even though I'd cancelled it more than a week before. She said she'd mention my concerns to the doctor and I cannot say if she did as I never heard back.
I spent a LARGE amount of money for this surgery, and I am NOT well off. The doctor stated that since he'd fixed the neck cord hanging down that I should be grateful. I AM...yet should I not be concerned that he left me with other issues in its place ? The left side of my neck looks like I got in an accident in some way.
I will NOT recommend him and have consulted attorneys over this. I've been told that with all of the papers I had to sign ahead of time, and with the level of attorney's that plastic surgeons have, it'd cost me too much to fight him.
Thank you for repairing the neck cord on my neck, Dr Santos. But no thank you for leaving me with whole new and different issues that I see every time I look or glance into the mirror (and all others see every time they look at me).
Immediately after surgery I had a horrible reaction to the medications I'd been given and began throwing up. Throwing up forces one to have their head down, a horrible position for someone who just had face and neck surgery. The nurse seemed VERY concerned, my husband was panicky, the anesthesiologist stated right away that he could give me "reversal drugs" to stop the reactions, yet Dr Santos said I'd be "fine", and he rushed us out of the recovery room and off to our hotel.
After a few hours I was still throwing up and my husband called the doctor. Dr Santos again said I should just rest, drink water and try to wait it out....but I was continuing to throw up, not able to even keep water down. The pain from the surgery was immeasurable due to the increased inflammation from having my head down to throw up, yet this was of no concern to this doctor. Again the anesthesiologist said he'd come by and give me reversal drugs yet he had to have Dr Santos blessing to do this, and he could not get it.
Later that afternoon I had to be rushed to Swedish hospital, I could not stop throwing up, I was too dizzy to even stand up and I was feeling numb all throughout my entire body. My husband called the doctor to let him know, and he stated he'd try to meet us at the hospital, but he didn't show up. The anesthesiologist stated that HE would come down there but again, Dr Santos would not give him permission to do so.
I was at Swedish for HOURS, it was a HORRIBLE experience and yet still Dr Santos did not show up. The hospital did give me reversal drugs to stop the throwing up and 3 rounds of IV fluids.
The next morning was my followup visit with Dr Santos. I was still pretty "out of it", not overly aware of all that was going on, due to the pain medications. My face was incredibly puffy, blown way up due to the inflammation from 24hours of throwing up after head and neck surgery. Dr Santos, at the appointment, made a comment about the hospitals not respecting plastic surgeons so me going there made him "look bad". He did a VERY quick check of the incisions, wrapped my head and we were out the door for our long drive home (we live 2 hours away).
Once we were home, I thew up a couple more times until we realized the antibiotics were causing it for the most part. My husband texted Dr Santos about stopping the antibiotics and he said that would be fine. I was in incredible pain, not due to the overall surgery, but due to the inflammation from the throwing up, my face was huge ! That weekend I studied online, videos and documents, related to what I went through. I emailed 2 surgeons who seemed to have alot of very detailed videos and documents on all that I was dealing with, one in New York, one in Florida. Immediately BOTH emailed me back, on this, a weekend, to a stranger ! They were very open about what I was dealing with and had some suggestions. One of them had me call him Monday when he was back in office (which I did, and we spoke for over an hour on Zoom).
Not once all weekend did Dr Santos call or even text to check on me, to see that all was well. I emailed them on Monday, and I didn't hear back until Wednesday. That Friday marked one week and I went back for my one week checkin. Dr Santos didn't seem concerned about all that I was dealing with, the HUGE puffy head, the pain due to that, the fact that his decision to NOT allow the reversal drugs is what caused this, the thick "rope" tube under the skin on the left side of my neck that looked awful.....none of it. He said MULTIPLE times how he knew what he was doing, had done over 4500 of these...more concerned about defending himself than addressing the issues and admitting that things should have been handled MUCH differently.
After a month I was asking about therapies that could assist in the healing process as I had to go back to work, yet I was NOT looking presentable. In the initial interview when I first met Dr Santos, he insisted I'd be back at work in 2 weeks, with easy ability to hide scars with my hair. My face was now so stretched out that I looked like a bloated frog...I did SO much crying, yet that hurt so I had to be careful.
Dr Santos agreed to do some Lazar Massage style therapy on my neck. Initially he said I'd have to pay for this but I was so angry about being made to pay to fix HIS mistake, agreed to a few months of this therapy. I live 2 hours from his office, so every other week for a couple of months, my husband and I made the trip to Seattle, basically taking up the entire day, for the 40 minutes of therapy.
After 3 months I did not see any differences with the therapy and Dr Santos mildly mentioned other therapies yet insisted I make yet another appointment to discuss them....so yet another trip which takes basically the entire day. At this point that part of Seattle was in the CHOP zone, so not a safe area to be, in any way, for anyone.
I made it clear that the left side of my neck looked awful, the thick ropey look was still there, the skin on that side wasn't tight as the right side, you could feel stitches wanting to come through the skin on that side, the skin on the left side looked "crepey" (spelling of that word ?). I mentioned this several times via email and one time when one of his nurses called me about an appointment she thought I had that Friday, even though I'd cancelled it more than a week before. She said she'd mention my concerns to the doctor and I cannot say if she did as I never heard back.
I spent a LARGE amount of money for this surgery, and I am NOT well off. The doctor stated that since he'd fixed the neck cord hanging down that I should be grateful. I AM...yet should I not be concerned that he left me with other issues in its place ? The left side of my neck looks like I got in an accident in some way.
I will NOT recommend him and have consulted attorneys over this. I've been told that with all of the papers I had to sign ahead of time, and with the level of attorney's that plastic surgeons have, it'd cost me too much to fight him.
Thank you for repairing the neck cord on my neck, Dr Santos. But no thank you for leaving me with whole new and different issues that I see every time I look or glance into the mirror (and all others see every time they look at me).
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