Everybody told the sisters they were lovely, but they still went ahead. Only, waking from surgery, Kanisha realised she was alone...
My sister Keuana and I clinked our glasses of rum.
‘Cheers to another fabulous holiday,’ she said.
‘I can’t wait to come back to Jamaica next year,’ I smiled.
Although we weren’t sisters by blood — my mum was Keuana’s mum’s aunt — we were as close as siblings and loved going on holidays together.
Mum had raised her since she was a baby and as I was only a year older, we’d grown up side by side.
Arriving back from our holiday, we couldn’t help noticing our bigger bellies from all the food and drink we’d indulged in.
We’d always loved our curvy bodies, but after we’d become mums, we started to nit-pick.
‘I wish I could get rid of my mum tum,’ Keuana sighed one day.
‘Me too,’ I replied.
Suddenly, a thought whirled round in my head. I’d recently considered having a few tweaks — was it now or never?
‘What do you think about having tummy tucks together?’ I said.
‘Great idea,’ she grinned.
Only, when I told my mum, she thought we were crazy.
‘You really don’t need surgery, but do what makes you happy,’ she said.
Keuana’s mum tried to dissuade her, too.
‘You’re already so beautiful to me, inside and out,’ she told her.
But we had set our hearts on it.
We decided to look into clinics in Mexico, where procedures were much cheaper.
But we knew it was riskier, so we scoured the internet to find the best surgeon.
I worked as a nurse, so I knew what questions to ask.
Eventually, we settled on Dr Báez.
‘He doesn’t have any negative reviews,’ I told Keuana.
She got in touch with the clinic straightaway and began messaging with his consultant on WhatsApp.
We both want the Mummy Makeovers, Keuana messaged.
The package included a tummy tuck with muscle repair and liposuction.
I also asked for an arm lift and Keuana wanted a Brazilian bum lift.
When we were told the prices, we were gobsmacked.
I’d be paying £5,600, while Keuana was quoted just £4,800. It seemed almost too good to be true.
Months passed and before we knew it, we’d arrived in Mexico.
My husband Craig tagged along for support.
The next day we walked into the clinic.
Suddenly, doubts started creeping in.
‘Do you think we might die?’
I asked Keuana, worriedly.
‘Sis, don’t think like that, we’re gonna be fine,’ she replied.
When we arrived, a nurse handed us some paperwork.
I noticed that it was all in Spanish.
‘Can we get one in English, please?’ I asked.
But they didn’t have any and her explanation in broken English didn’t help.
With no way around it, we signed on the dotted line.
After having tests, we were taken to see Dr Báez and he marked up our bodies.
Then we made our payments and were taken to a waiting room.
We met another woman waiting for surgery with the same doctor.
‘I’m Esmeralda,’ she smiled, wishing us luck.
We got chatting and added each other on Facebook.
Minutes later, nurses came to take Esmeralda into surgery.
An hour later, the nurses came for Keuana.
We gave each other a hug.
‘I love you, sis,’ I said.
‘Love you too,’ she replied.
While I waited my turn, it dawned on me that we hadn’t been hooked up to any monitors, apart from a saline drip.
It was strange.
We’d been told our operations would each take four hours.
So when a nurse came to collect me an hour later, I was confused.
How can they be finished with Keuana already? I wondered.
But I trusted them.
I was taken into surgery, then everything went black.
When I woke up, my whole body throbbed in pain.
I scanned the room, but Keuana was nowhere to be seen.
‘Where’s my sister?’ I asked a nurse.
But she didn’t meet my eye.
No one would tell me anything.
Because I was being kept sedated,
I slipped in and out of consciousness.
Twenty-four hours later, I woke up to find Craig sitting beside me.
'Do you think we might die?'
‘Keuana didn’t make it,’ he said, his face etched with sadness. ‘She died on the operating table.’
‘I knew something was wrong!’ I screamed.
I had lost my best friend.
‘Can I see her?’ I pleaded.
‘Her body’s already been taken,’ he said softly.
She was only 38 and had left behind two children, aged one and 13.
It was a terrible tragedy.
When we arrived home, I shuffled through the front door using a walker, wincing in pain.
The next day I could barely move an inch.
‘I’m going to the supermarket, I’ll be back soon,’ said Craig.
My body shouldn’t be this weak, I thought.
It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten or been to the toilet in several days.
‘Call an ambulance,’ I said to my grown-up daughter Denisha.
At hospital, doctors did multiple tests.
Suddenly, there was a flurry of people around me.
‘Quickly! She’s haemorrhaging, she needs blood right now!’ a medic shouted.
I was given a blood transfusion and rushed into surgery.
When I woke up, a doctor told me he’d managed to stop the bleeding from my tummy tuck scar, but it was a close call.
‘If you’d left it one more day, you would have died,’ he said.
Then, there was another setback. Doctors discovered that the surgeon had pierced my bowel, so parts of it had travelled into my stomach. I had to undergo another operation.
When I came round, I had dozens of missed calls and texts.
Esmeralda’s unconscious in hospital, one read.
That’s when it clicked.
It was no coincidence that Keuana had lost her life, while we were fighting for ours.
This was down to the surgeon.
I was diagnosed with acute kidney failure and two weeks later, I was allowed home. My body felt like it had been in a war zone.
Thankfully, Esmeralda had improved, but she’d nearly died from septic shock.
I called her while she recovered in hospital.
Aside from kidney problems, we had something else in common.
Dr Báez had sewn up our tummy muscles too tightly and we’d been struggling to breathe.
Our organs had been so squished together, it had cut off blood supply to our kidneys.
But doctors told us the muscles would loosen naturally in time.
Every day, I missed Keuana so much.
She should be here next to me, I thought sadly.
After her death was picked up by the local news, I came across a Facebook group called Botched by Báez in Tijuana.
Mr Báez is not a member of the Mexican Board of Certified Plastic Surgeons, it read.
My mouth fell open in shock.
Because his website was in Spanish, we hadn’t been able to spot that he wasn’t certified.
Through news reports, I found out that six years earlier, one of his other clinics had been shut down for not meeting the minimum requirements to operate legally.
I couldn’t believe he’d still been allowed to conduct operations on people.
A few weeks later, Keuana’s body was flown back home.
Her official cause of death was secondary hypoxic encephalopathy — a brain injury caused by oxygen deprivation.
However, even the autopsy report didn’t show why this had happened.
I strongly believed it was down to the reckless actions of Dr Báez.
I contacted the clinic, but I didn’t even get a simple apology.
Keuana’s mum was offered a refund of her surgery, but she didn’t accept it.
I don’t blame her — it’s an absolute insult and won’t make up for losing Keuana.
We want to take legal action, but for now, my focus is on getting back my health and strength again.
I’m still affected by what happened on the operating table.
I’ve now got the flat stomach I dreamt of, but it wasn’t worth losing Keuana over.
Now, I want to warn others to do their homework thoroughly and make sure their surgeon is registered before booking any cut-price surgery.
I still haven’t received the English translations of the paperwork we signed.
So please, make sure you know exactly what you’re agreeing to before booking a procedure.
After all, you’re putting your life in someone else’s hands — it’s not a decision to be taken lightly.
Kanisha Davis, 40
that's Life! contacted Dr Báez's clinic, but received no response at the time of going to press.