An amazing doctor

As you all know, I was in New Orleans this past week to meet up with my surgeon for the 6-week post surgical followup.  We expected this to be an easy breezy meeting with the removal of my surgical drains, some short discussion of the next two months and a return home.  Because of this, my wife did not join me on the trip and we gave my 15 year old son Riley the opportunity to take a trip to a new portion of the country for him.

Well, the visit with the Doctor on Tuesday showed that it was not going to be easy breezy but it should still be quite straight forward.  The insertion of a stent between the bile duct and the small intestine would be done Wednesday afternoon as an endoscopy.  Many endoscopies are done using twilight anesthesia rather than full anesthesia so we expected to get a cab ride to the hospital and then Riley would get a cab to take us back to the hotel after the procedure.

Since this procedure is a bit more complicated than 'normal' endoscopies, the doctor elected to go with full anesthesia.  The anesthesiologist followed the proper protocol for carcinoid crisis, the same procedure used for my three days of surgery 7 weeks ago.  For some reason, my body reacted and I immediately went into full carcinoid crisis as soon as anesthesia was given.

Fortunately, Dr. Boudreaux was in another OR and was able to come over and give me bolus injections of sandostatin over and over again until I came right out of crisis and they were able to continue with the procedure.  Here is where the amazing doctor story starts.

Because of the crisis, I was not allowed to go home and needed to stay the night in the ICU.  Dr. Boudreaux, knowing my son was with me and not my wife, offered Riley the chance to stay at his house for the night, offering to bring him back in the morning when he comes in for surgery or his wife could bring him in later.  Riley thanked him but said he would stay at the hotel.

Dr. Boudreaux was not to be denied and found a room on the remodeled fifth floor of the hospital for Riley to stay in. Dr. Boudreaux then drove Riley to the hotel to get all of our stuff, check out of the hotel, and drove Riley back to the hospital to stay the night.  I was completely unaware of any of this activity although Stephanie was in the loop the whole time.

This was an amazing act of consideration and compassion by a surgeon who did not have to do any of what he did.  If you are considering treatment for your neuroendocrine tumors with the group of doctors in New Orleans, this is exactly what you can anticipate.  Excellent care, knowledge, and compassion.