Beauty and the Beasts

by Peoples Magazine - March 2006

Beauty & the Beasts: Like a  growing number of travelers, Georgia mom Kristie Allen heads to South  Africa for plastic surgery--with a safari thrown in on the side.

After losing nearly 80 lbs.,  mother of two Kristie Allen needed plastic surgery to sculpt her body  back into shape. But instead of going to a U.S. doctor, she opted for  meditourism, a booming trend in which travelers combine exotic trips  with surgery, typically for less than the cost of the operation alone if done here. (See tally above.) South Africa, with its weak currency and  well-regarded doctors, has proved particularly alluring to travelers  like Allen, 30, who in July signed up with the Mediscapes agency and  South African doc Don Hudson (they communicated by e-mail). Here's how  her scalpel safari turned out.

The Incidental Tourist

During her first few days in  Cape Town, where she stays at the Copacabana guest lodge, Allen takes in the view from Table Mountain, shops at a local market and visits a  25,000-acre game reserve, spotting lions, rhinos and giraffes. "This is  just awesome," she says. So, too, is being able to eat all the gourmet  food served as part of her tour package (such as chicken with mustard  sauce and cheese scones). "I'm on the 'eat everything plan,'" she jokes, "because it's all going to be sucked out of me.'" Allen's relaxed  attitude continues during her first meeting with Dr. Hudson, who  describes possible post-op complications, including infection and  internal bleeding. "I don't think there's a bigger risk of me dying in  Africa than in the U.S.," she says. "If it's my time to go, it's my time to go."

Nip, Tuck & Recovery

On day 6, Allen enters  University of Cape Town Private Academic Hospital and spends four hours  undergoing a tummy tuck and liposuction. The surgery leaves her with a  new body--and in a whole lot of pain. "I feel like someone shot me," she moans after waking up. Five days later, Allen is well enough to do some more shopping, but after an airline strike is called, she suddenly  decides to fly home a day early--which doesn't leave her time to return  to the hospital to have her stitches removed. When Mediscapes learns of  her decision, it sends a nurse to take out Allen's stitches in an  airport bathroom, thereby eliminating the possibility that the sutures  will come undone on the plane. Leaning against a baby changing table,  Allen lifts up her shirt and admires her considerably flatter tummy.  "I'm just thrilled to death," she says.

 Home Sweet Home

With written instructions on  aftercare from Dr. Hudson (among other things, he tells her to wear  Lycra pants under her clothes for six weeks to "help compress the  skin"), Allen arrives home on July 27. Six months later she reports that she hasn't suffered any ill effects from her overseas operation.  (Mediscapes says that in four years of doing business, it has yet to see any patients who suffer complications that need following up.) "My skin healed really well," says Allen, who recently sported a bikini during a family vacation in the Bahamas with husband Andy, 36, a carpet cleaner; son Michael, 12; and daughter Breanna, 8. "If you look at my pictures  from that trip, I'm smiling in all of them." So does Allen have any  regrets? Only one. "I should have done my butt," she says.

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