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Everything Seemed Great Until I Wouldn't Heal Due a Mycobacterial Infection
After suffering from back pain and abdominal muscle spasms despite trying physical therapy for months to correct my diastasis recti from having 3 children, I decided to get a consultation for a tummy tuck. My husband and I agreed that this would help me functionally as well as asthetically.
I met with an assistant to determine if a full tummy tuck with abdominal repair was what I needed and she agreed I was a perfect candidate. My skin was stretched enough yet still had good elasticity, and I am in good health and still young. We scheduled my consult with Dr. Craven and I was slightly nervous as this was a much more major surgery with a much longer recovery than my previous breast augmentation in 2008. They provided detailed and well put together instructions for pre and post-op and I felt I was in good hands. I was further encouraged by a great portfolio of amazing results that I hoped to have soon enough as well.
The day of surgery things went well, but I woke up in extreme pain and they refused to give any additional pain medication. They said I could take my prescribed pain medication once I got home. The ride home was the most horrible and painful experience of my life, and I wish I had brought extra pillows. Once home, I slept in a recliner and had a catheter in, which I am glad I had because getting into the recliner was awful and I could not have made it to the bathroom that night. I highly recommend that you create a color coded medication spreadsheet ahead of surgery day so that you can write down when you have taken your medicines and what times you are supposed to take your medicines. This made things easy for my caregiver and myself to check that I had taken everything properly. I shared this spreadsheet with the nurse in hopes that they could provide it to help future patients prepare for their post-op care. I had to use a walker for almost 2 weeks, and it took quite a while to be able to stand upright. In the first week of recovery I developed a bloody seroma/"old hematoma" over my navel as well as necrosis on my incision. The necrosis evolved into an open wound that would not heal and had to be debrided and packed. The seroma had to be drained at least weekly. Now, more than a year post op, scarring has created a bulge there that will need to be revised once I am ready for my revision surgery. The open wound on my incision was an ongoing ordeal, and I had a revision to close it and remove dead tissue(what the doctor claimed at the time to be fat necrosis-I had been leaking questionable fluid from my old drain hole and the wound for 4 months at this point). This revision was done without anesthesia, just local numbing and lasted roughly one hour. It was traumatic and painful and they had to install another drain. I had been told this was going to be a minor procedure, no big deal, but it was very painful. I could not get out of bed for 2 days afterwards and the nurses would not release my surgery notes to my pain management doctor so I could not get pain medication until I went in to my doctor's office and they saw the surgical site. I was crying from pain the entire time and they took one look at my surgical site and said "Holy crap you have a drain and everything! You are severely under-medicated!" They immediately gave me a prescription and apologized, but this entire time Dr. Craven never had his nurses send over my surgery notes or even tried to contact the doctor to resolve this. This second incision also opened and became a draining hole. At this time, my health was declining, I was having low grade fevers despite consuming acetametophen(lowers fever) and I complained to Dr. Craven. He insisted I did not have an infection and that I just had more fat necrosis(his explanation for the drainage and not healing). During this time I was tested for diabetes and any type of illness that would keep me from healing by multiple other doctors I was seeing because they were highly concerned by a 28 year old not healing in 6 months and the appearance of my incision. Dr. Craven finally took a sample from my drainage and submitted it for testing. His nurses handled the specimen improperly(this was on the notes from the lab) but they failed to inform me and assured me I still had no infection. Later, I had them collect another sample, and the original sample had been sent to the state because rare bacteria had finally started to grow from my sample. At this point, one of my OTHER physicians referred me to an infectious diseases specialist(Westlake Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery completely dropped the ball with my results) and I was under their care for roughly 6 months. I had to take multiple VERY strong antibiotics that made me very sick for months on end. I recently finished and was cleared, but I have disfiguring scarring on my entire incision line from this ordeal, life long complications from the scarring, nerve damage and antibiotics I had to take to rid my body of this infection. The infection I had is a surgically-acquired Mycobacterim fortuitum. I will be getting my revision from another surgeon and facility altogether -Dr. Craven and his nurses admitted that I was NOT the only patient of his who had gotten this same infection. I hope this review keeps others from getting this infection at this facility, because for me it is too late and I will have to pay for my revision on top of the high price of this surgery and all of the associated costs I accumulated due to my complications and infection. I spoke with their business manager and they offered no attempt to make this right.
I met with an assistant to determine if a full tummy tuck with abdominal repair was what I needed and she agreed I was a perfect candidate. My skin was stretched enough yet still had good elasticity, and I am in good health and still young. We scheduled my consult with Dr. Craven and I was slightly nervous as this was a much more major surgery with a much longer recovery than my previous breast augmentation in 2008. They provided detailed and well put together instructions for pre and post-op and I felt I was in good hands. I was further encouraged by a great portfolio of amazing results that I hoped to have soon enough as well.
The day of surgery things went well, but I woke up in extreme pain and they refused to give any additional pain medication. They said I could take my prescribed pain medication once I got home. The ride home was the most horrible and painful experience of my life, and I wish I had brought extra pillows. Once home, I slept in a recliner and had a catheter in, which I am glad I had because getting into the recliner was awful and I could not have made it to the bathroom that night. I highly recommend that you create a color coded medication spreadsheet ahead of surgery day so that you can write down when you have taken your medicines and what times you are supposed to take your medicines. This made things easy for my caregiver and myself to check that I had taken everything properly. I shared this spreadsheet with the nurse in hopes that they could provide it to help future patients prepare for their post-op care. I had to use a walker for almost 2 weeks, and it took quite a while to be able to stand upright. In the first week of recovery I developed a bloody seroma/"old hematoma" over my navel as well as necrosis on my incision. The necrosis evolved into an open wound that would not heal and had to be debrided and packed. The seroma had to be drained at least weekly. Now, more than a year post op, scarring has created a bulge there that will need to be revised once I am ready for my revision surgery. The open wound on my incision was an ongoing ordeal, and I had a revision to close it and remove dead tissue(what the doctor claimed at the time to be fat necrosis-I had been leaking questionable fluid from my old drain hole and the wound for 4 months at this point). This revision was done without anesthesia, just local numbing and lasted roughly one hour. It was traumatic and painful and they had to install another drain. I had been told this was going to be a minor procedure, no big deal, but it was very painful. I could not get out of bed for 2 days afterwards and the nurses would not release my surgery notes to my pain management doctor so I could not get pain medication until I went in to my doctor's office and they saw the surgical site. I was crying from pain the entire time and they took one look at my surgical site and said "Holy crap you have a drain and everything! You are severely under-medicated!" They immediately gave me a prescription and apologized, but this entire time Dr. Craven never had his nurses send over my surgery notes or even tried to contact the doctor to resolve this. This second incision also opened and became a draining hole. At this time, my health was declining, I was having low grade fevers despite consuming acetametophen(lowers fever) and I complained to Dr. Craven. He insisted I did not have an infection and that I just had more fat necrosis(his explanation for the drainage and not healing). During this time I was tested for diabetes and any type of illness that would keep me from healing by multiple other doctors I was seeing because they were highly concerned by a 28 year old not healing in 6 months and the appearance of my incision. Dr. Craven finally took a sample from my drainage and submitted it for testing. His nurses handled the specimen improperly(this was on the notes from the lab) but they failed to inform me and assured me I still had no infection. Later, I had them collect another sample, and the original sample had been sent to the state because rare bacteria had finally started to grow from my sample. At this point, one of my OTHER physicians referred me to an infectious diseases specialist(Westlake Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery completely dropped the ball with my results) and I was under their care for roughly 6 months. I had to take multiple VERY strong antibiotics that made me very sick for months on end. I recently finished and was cleared, but I have disfiguring scarring on my entire incision line from this ordeal, life long complications from the scarring, nerve damage and antibiotics I had to take to rid my body of this infection. The infection I had is a surgically-acquired Mycobacterim fortuitum. I will be getting my revision from another surgeon and facility altogether -Dr. Craven and his nurses admitted that I was NOT the only patient of his who had gotten this same infection. I hope this review keeps others from getting this infection at this facility, because for me it is too late and I will have to pay for my revision on top of the high price of this surgery and all of the associated costs I accumulated due to my complications and infection. I spoke with their business manager and they offered no attempt to make this right.
Provider Review
