My main reason in writing this is in hope that no other family will have to go through what we have gone through.
On October 24 th 2011 my brother flew from Louisiana alone to Cancun Mexico to have a total body lift by Dr. Rafael Velasco Marin at Clinica Victoria. But to start at the beginning, about 2 years ago he had lap band surgery and lost about 200 pounds. He looked wonderful!!! He looked and felt better than he had ever felt in his life. Well one day he decided he didn't like the extra skin that came with loosing 200 lbs. He began to search for a doctor in Mexico to do this because it is half the price that it would be here in America. All of the doctors he found wanted to do the total body lift in 3 stages. They would start at his face and go down to his thighs. Well, then he found Judy with Ready4aChange. She told him she would take care of it. At one point he told her he was thinking about canceling and she convinced him it was safe and it would be ok. She found Dr. Velasco who agreed to do the surgery all at one time. He said the surgery would last about 7 or 8 hours. Then he would go to a hotel for 9 days with a private nurse. Well, Phillip went to Cancun Oct. 24th
. Surgery was scheduled for the next day, the 25th. Phillip called
his wife the morning of the 25th at about 8am and told her he was about to go in surgery. That was the last time he spoke to her. That night about 11:00pm Dr. Velasco called his wife and said everything went fine and that Phillip would call her when he came out of recovery. The next day his wife knew something wasn't right when she still had not heard from Phillip by around noon. She called all of the numbers she had for the contacts in Mexico, ready4achange, etc...no answer from anyone.
Finally about 4:30 she received a call from Judy to say that about 1:00 the doctor noticed blood in the drain in his stomach and took him back in to surgery. Also, Judy said that as the Doctor was checking on Phillip, Phillip started having great difficulty breathing. They went to surgery and after they checked the drain Phillip went in to respiratory arrest twice and then Cardiac arrest, at which time they could not bring him back. They said it was a Pulmonary Embolism that was causing the bleeding and then death. Since this we have not been able to contact the doctor or the clinic in any way. We just want answers and they will not answers any of our requests. We did get a copy of the medical records but the anesthesia record ended at about 6:30 so obviously we did not receive everything. Also, there was evidence Phillip got a blood transfusion the day of his death, and we were never told about that. Please, if u r thinking about going to Mexico for Surgery, please reconsider. This could happen to you. We will never know what really happened.

Wow that must be so difficult. My heart goes out to you and your family! Your poor brother. I am 22 and had a botched surgery here in the states, but thank God I still function it just looks bad. I have realized that surgery is a great risk and should never be done electively. I am so young and had my whole life ahead of me, now I am deformed looking; but at least I am alive. Your brother would have probably suffered great pain, not to mention botched skin, and probably not have been able to walk had he came out alive. I think about taking my life all the time so maybe God took him for a reason. May he Rest In Peace <3