26 Yr / No Kids / Canada / Liposculpture, BA / RX at Santo Domingo with Dra. Tania Medina on August 23

Hi Realself,

I've been self conscious about my body shape for a long time. I've never made peace with my stomach nor my boobs. I'm 5'6, 140 lbs, 34B, athletic built with not much shape around my stomach nor chest. I've been stalking Realself since April, but officially made the decision to do the surgery (and also quitting my day job...partly because my coworkers chattered about another girl's obvious breast implants, so I rather just not deal with that kind of office gossips. I'm pretty confident I can find another job haha). I'm from Canada, but I wanted to look into traveling out of the country for the procedure mainly because of cost and talent. I've been following Dra. Tania Medina's work for some time and I'm really impressed with her IG and reviews here. My top picks were Robles, Goico and Medina, but at the end, I am going with Dra. Tania Medina due to consistent positive reviews (and I read thoroughly, from verifying how active the reviewers were, in case of fake profiles, to matching people's tattoos in there before and after. I should've been a detective.)

Communications with her was fairly easy, she responds very quick on Whatsapp. Any questions I've had was addressed quickly, although some of her responses are a copy and paste (can you blame her though? imagine 100 people asking you the same thing all day via text message.) I couldn't wire her the money via Bank of America (we don't have one) so I had to send the $500 USD to Marielle Jimenez via Moneygram. From there, I had 3 weeks to plan for my surgery on August 23 2016.

I've booked my flight with departure from my city to Mexico City (11 hours layover...sightseeing time!) and expected arrival on August 22 at 6am, just one day before RX. I've booked my RH with Medina's team because Airbnb may sound cheaper, but I wanted the reassurance of having wifi, food, nurse on site, etc. I think that extra $675 will bring a peace of mind.

I just did my blood test at the local clinic last Tuesday, I should expect my results by the end of the week. Dra. Medina advised me that I need a minimum of 13.5 for my hemoglobins in order to have lipo and BA on the same day. Fingers crossed.

Today I've picked up some Vitamin C and Multivitamins and compression socks. Any post op girls have other reccomendations?

Man, I am going to DR in the next 12 hours, it's a bit nerve wrecking since I am traveling alone.

So I called my clinic for my blood test results and my doctor noted that I was at risk for Iron deficiency. My heart sank because I know my iron levels have to be a bit high in order to have a higher hemoglobin level. I really wanted to do both liposculture AND breast augmentation, but if I had to choose one over the other, it would suck to spend so much money to get it done out of the country when I could've done it in Canada. LUCKILY, my hemoglobin level was at 13.7 so I am good to go! I was so relieved, my only issue is that it MIGHT drop because I am expecting my mensual cycle around the same time as the RX (on August 23).

I've had to exchange CAD to USD (again, don't do this last minute, I've done it on a Thursday afternoon, 4 days before my departure. Most banks told me I cannot withdraw 6.5k USD without making an order, but luckily the teller referred me to a currency exchange place with a bank draft, so I didn't have to walk around with 9k cash). My money exchange was another story:
"What is the money for?"
"Travels"
"For travels, eh?"

He kept insinuating I was smuggling money or something. Dude, just give me my damn money. I wasn't going to say the money was for these [RS bleep]. Seriously. Note: don't bring over 10k cash because you will have to declare it.

I've packed the following:

$6500 USD cash for surgery and any unexpected expenses

BioOil
Polysporin
Bunch of crappy tshirts (those free tees)
Socks
Toiletries (sample size stuff)
Loose fitted dresses
stool softeners
tampons
cleansing wipes
soaps
Cheerios (don't judge, I love that stuff)
Simple Bars
Vega: One All in One Shake - Vanilla Chai

So my flight arrived a bit late and to my relief, as soon as I exit the airport, I see a sign with my name on it. Jeremiah was the driver and he brought me straight to My Recovery House right away. I've briefly met some of the other girls (about 5 for now) eating their breakfast and we waited for another girl in the house to get ready to go to the clinics to do their blood work and x-rays. Along the way, we've picked up another future Medina patient, so we were 3 girls getting our pre-op requirements. We arrived at Cellipe (not sure how it's spelt) and it's actually a really nice and clean looking. It's not too crowded, and there's mostly foreigners in the clinic. They put you through a quick session with a psychiatrist and a psychologist, consent forms and then final lump sum payment. After that, we were driven to another clinic to get our x-rays (this is super quick process, the driver guided us through the nurses and all health care staff, and as you walk through the crowd of people waiting at the X-ray clinic, you can tell foreigner gets special treatment).

Now that I've actually returned to the recovery, my first impression is that this is a nice space. Imagine what a luxury hostel would look like. The housemates are mostly women, so we call chat during lunch and supper times. I actually feel very comforted to befriend women going through the same situation. I was lucky that when I arrived, I get first dibs on a large room (I specified that I want AC in my room, trust me, this is a big deal because it's humid af in Dominican), but the downside is, I'm going to have to share my room with 2 other future patients (ugh no privacy). So far, the meals have been pretty good, the head of staff speaks English fluently and the rest of the staff is very accommodating. Pretty good experience so far.