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San Antonio Woman Journeys to Mexico to Lose Weight
LAST UPDATE: 2/6/2004 7:45:33 AM
Posted By: Mandi Bishop

Ever thought about crossing the border to lose weight? One brave woman was desperate to get control of her body, and she did something you might never have thought of.

"Here I am with my girlfriends and I'm huge!," Sandy Vasquez-Gonzalez says as she shows us picture albums of days with friends on the beach. "I looked at that it just makes me sick. I'm disgusted."

Sandy says she gained most of her weight in college, topping out at 349 pounds. Worried about health problems, she had gastric bypass surgery in September of 2001. After losing 151 pounds, she found out she had a new set of problems.

"When you walk your house and you hear this flapping, it's kinda gross." Sandy's talking about her excess skin that now hangs on her body because she lost so much weight.

She knew the next step would be cosmetic and pricey. Sandy did her own research and found out a surgery that includes a breast lift ,tummy tuck and liposuction would cost any where from $18,000-20,000 in the United States. Then she learned the same surgery would cost $6,000 in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

Sandy agreed to let us come along as she continued her journey across the border, to the Centro De Ginecologia. On the Saturday morning in January when she arrives at the clinic, she is given her room and meets with her doctor. After spending several hours in surgery, all three procedures are done: the breast lift, liposuction and a tummy tuck.

Now it's February and she still has a good month and a half to two months before she's completely back to normal. After being in the care of her mom for a month, Sandy is still swollen. She will continue to lose more as all the swelling goes down, but until then she has to wear a garment to keep everything tight while she heals.

"I can't say that it's for everybody. You, yourself, has to say, 'This is for me. This is not for me."

Sandy is between sizes 16 & 18, and says she never sees herself getting any smaller than a size 12. She's down to 174 pounds since the surgery in Mexico. That means she lost a total of 175 pounds. She's halved her weight from the time she started this journey in 2001.

"Now that I've lost all this weight, and I've had all these things done to me, I really am happy. It's not pretending anymore. I'm happy!"

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=BF54E25E-DBE7-414D-AF8C-AEE5EBBF369F