"7 operations and more to come"

In October 2009 I was sent for an endoscopy as I was anaemic and the thought was that I may have haemorrhoids causing loss of blood.

During the procedure I felt a sharp pain and cried out, but the lady doing the procedure told me not to be a big baby and that it did not hurt at all. I was sent home in pain and told that when I had passed wind everything would be fine (oh how I wished).

I received a courtesy call the next morning asking if everything was all right, I told the caller that, no everything was not all right; I had hardly slept due to the pain and was rattling with the amount of painkillers I had taken. She appeared unconcerned and asked if I had passed wind, when I said no she assured me that once I had the pain would go.

I had yet another awful night and asked my wife to drive me to my parent’s house to take my mind off the pain by having a chat with them. When we got there I got out of the car and collapsed on the drive, I was unconscious for a while and my father rang 999 for an ambulance.

When I arrived at hospital it was determined that I had peritonitis and a tear to my lower bowel.

I had three operations in the first week to try to repair the tear and stop the infection, things did not go to plan and I had to have yet another operation which ended with me having a stoma and colostomy bag fitted.

After 6 or 7 weeks in hospital it was decided that the stoma could be reversed, but that didn’t work, after 3 days everything came back up through my mouth and nose, so it was back down for another operation and the bag was put back to stay for 12 months or so.

During all this I lost 5 stones in weight and had to have a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC or PIC line) fitted trough the main artery in my neck which incorporated a feeding tube and other lines to gauge blood pressure and other vitals.

To keep track of all that was happening inside me, I had numerous X-rays and MIR scans, and it was during one of these scans that a cancerous tumour was found in my left kidney.

I was told very sympathetically by the consultant, but it was still a massive shock. I was unable to have the operation to remove the kidney, as I was too weak, so it was scheduled for four months time when I had recovered somewhat from the bowel problems.

After almost 5 months in hospital I was allowed home and apart from a few minor problems I recovered pretty well. I went back in for the nephrectomy in May 2010. The surgery went well and the consultant is pretty sure that all the cancer is gone.

Also during the same scan it was found that I had an Aortic Aneurysm which has to be checked every 6 months for size, when it gets to 6cm it will be removed.

In September of 2010 I had the colostomy reversed and the bag removed, so I was mostly back to normal, apart from 2 hernias which my consultant is going to repair in the next month or so.

So all in all having a camera inserted inside me cost me a lot of pain and suffering, but also found a cancer that may not have been found until it was too late otherwise.