Suset Iglesias

Hi. My name's Susset Iglesias, and I live in Port St Lucie, Florida, in the United States. I was a patient back in August of 2022 at the Hospital Serena del Mar in Cartagena, Colombia. I was there because I went to Colombia for vacation, was my first time in Cartagena and I had an ATV accident where I fractured my tibia. I had a I had a tibial plateau fracture, which is pretty severe. I cracked my bone in about five different places. It was it was a very complicated case, to say the least. I was very fortunate and very lucky and blessed that because this hospital was said it, I didn't run to where I was because I only have good things to say about them. And this is the reason why I'm making the video, because I do want to point out a few things and I wanted to say a few things about the hospital. Hopefully this would help in any way and anyone else that maybe has a similar situation. So as somebody as I'm not Colombian, I never lived in Colombia, I never been to Cartagena. I went in. I don't know how their health care system works. I is very different from the United States. So to me, it was a very unknown territory. So when I got there, I was I went they took me straight into the emergency room. They did ask for my passport and my information, obviously. And in that moment, I didn't have my passport on me because I was on a tour. I didn't want to have a passport while I was out and about, but luckily I was able to find my passport number and then they were able to get me in. 

The doctors at the E.R., at the emergency room and the nurses were very, very, very good. They were they showered me. I don't know at this point how they were able to do that, because I was in excruciating pain and it was just so fast and so efficient. It was very it was it was very impressive to me. They took me to this huge room. It was like a huge shower room. I've never seen such thing. It was new, clean, beautiful. I am not even exaggerating. It was the most beautiful bathroom, big bathroom ever seen. They were very sweet, very kind, and very fast in the way they acted that first night. I had to get I had to get my leg basically straightened out and I had to get on a cast of some sort to maintain the legs straight so that we wouldn't swell up. Because eventually what could happen is that I could lose my leg if it was up enough that it starts to kill all those nerves. And that could be a potential issue. But thanks to them, I still have my leg today. So I'm very grateful and very blessed that I am right now able to make this video for anyone moving forward. So so that night, the doctor in the E.R., you know, they did the X-rays, CT scans. They had all the equipment that I was very impressed.

I was very impressed with all the equipment and everything that they had. It was all very high technology. The videos that I saw, they they showed me my my videos of my bone. It was like a 360 video. I mean, it's impressive. So I was able to kind of see exactly where it broke and what really happened to my leg. So the doctors right away, they took me in that did that procedure. And the next morning, first thing when I woke up, Dr. Daniel Morales came in and he he was the one who talked to me about what was going to happen moving forward. Moving forward, I had to get surgery done. And in this case, it was two types of surgeries. The first surgery that I needed to get was something to stabilize my leg so that my leg would stay straight. So basically they had to put rods. It's got I guess is like an external fixator, the metal rods that basically keep your leg very straight. And, you know, he explained this to me at this point, I was in a unknown country. I was not I mean, thank God. Spanish is my first language. So I was able to communicate, although they do speak English, which I was very, very impressed with. 

They you know, I was also away from my family and I was very nervous. I'm not going to lie because, I mean, having to get a surgery outside of my country made me a little nervous. But he was the kindest and nicest doctor that I ever met. He talked to me very slow and very good terms, and he explained what had happened, what I need to move forward and how everything will look from now on. For me, this has been life changing, to say the least. This fractured did change my life, and it's going to continue to change my life from now on the way I live it. But it wasn't. But it's not going to stop me from continuing to do the things that I need to do for myself and the things that make me happy. So. I said, okay, let's go ahead and do the the what we need to do to save the leg. So that same morning, he said, okay, we're ready for you. We have all the materials. Let's go. At that point, I said, okay, let's do this. They took me to the in the O.R. in the operating room. And next thing I know, I'm awake in the place where I thought at that moment I died and went to heaven. Guilty or not, it was the nicest recovery room that I ever seen. 

Overlooking a beautiful river or lake. And the animals and. I can't explain how amazing waking up to that was. I had just a nurse for myself. She was very helpful, very sweet. She told me, she talked to me and she said, Hey, you know what happened? She made sure that I was okay. She gave me what I needed. She talked to my fiance, my fiancee, who was with me at the moment. And he they made sure that he was also aware of what's going on with me. And at that point, they told me, okay, you're going to have to be here. For a while because we have to wait for the swelling to go down in order to do the next surgery, which is to actually put plates in my leg to hold that bone, you know. So that could take a week, two weeks, depending on how well I do and how much of the swimming goes down. So at that point, it was kind of scary for me because I had to be outside of my country for a while now. And I just one day I couldn't go home just that day. I had to be there. I have to say that everybody said and I am I made me very comfortable, very comfortable and very secure about what was going on.