Page 37 - South Mississippi Living - June, 2017

Ocean Springs, 228.875.3778 Pascagoula, 228.762.4483 Biloxi, 228.432.1116 Lucedale, 601.247.0180
FAR LEFT: Jesse Alejandro and his youngest son, Christian, pose with Dr. Dvorak.
RIGHT: Alejandro while coaching a youth baseball team several years ago when he was heavier, and before his almost death experience and surgeries.
FAR RIGHT: Alejandro was thinking of his two sons, Angel and Christian, when he spent time in the intensive care unit.
my ex-wife and said, ‘I’m sorry, you look like drug seekers and I’m not going to give you any drugs. I can’t do anything for you,’” Alejandro said.
The following day, he drove to Mobile, Ala., for a job interview. “I was in throbbing pain. I felt like I had a torch in my stomach. I knew something was not right,” he said.
When he returned to Jackson County from his interview, he returned to the hospital emergency room. He was seen after becoming ill in the waiting room. With a body temperature of around 104, he underwent a computed tomography x-ray (CT)
that was done in black and white rather than using dye because his kidneys were shutting down. The uncontrasted image made it difficult to provide a diagnosis, Dvorak said.
It took an old-fashioned, sharp-eyed kidney specialist examining Alejandro in ICU who pinpointed the problem.
“He called me up and said, ‘I’ve got a surgical patient for you.’ Jesse had almost no blood pressure, and we were getting ready to code him. We got
his pressure back up, and took him into surgery,” Dvorak said.
Alejandro had a pancreatic abscess that had eroded into his colon. Dvorak said his patient had been suffering from pancreatitis that caused a fluid build- up and became septic. Because of the abscess, the surgeon had to remove part of the colon and do a colostomy.
“In 15 years as a surgeon and 6,000 abdominal operations, this was the second pancreatic abscess I’ve ever operated on,” Dvorak said.
Alejandro soon found himself on the road to recovery and went back to Dvorak to have the colostomy removed. A little over a year after his initial emergency surgery, he turned to Dvorak
for the third time to treat a huge hernia that had developed.
“Having additional training and experience treating complex hernias, allowed me to utilize a technique tailor-made for his type of problem,” Dvorak said.
Because of the size of the hernia, Alejandro had to undergo a large incision and Dvorak put in a lightweight mesh material.
“I think he was in the hospital for three weeks. It takes a full six weeks before anyone is back to his routine after that type of hernia surgery,” Dvorak said.
Alejandro’s last surgery was in September 2014. With his health restored, he finished his studies to be a surgical technician and went to work at the VA hospital in Biloxi. He continued to be “Coach” to the youth in Vancleave and be “Dad” to his two sons, Christian, 10, and Angel, 13. The 37 year old recently accepted a new job and moved to New Jersey.
“Dr. Dvorak is such a good doctor. I wish he could be my family doctor,” Alejandro said. “He went beyond care on what any surgeon would do. I appreciate him, and so does my family.”
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June 2017 • SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living 37