Category Archives: My Story

BA 9: Sun, Sea and Surgery

It was midsummer in the year 2012, with the hot sun scorching the cracked paving stones of Glasgow when I showed up to hospital in innocence, expecting to undergo a simple keyhole procedure to help with the troublesome infection which had been plaguing me for many moons…

PA 9: In The Neck Of Time (Part 2)

There I lay, my face covered with a large green sheet and warm fluid flowing uncomfortably freely from my neck.
For a brief moment I though to myself, “Oh come on, I’ve just survived a major infection, open heart surgery, a surprise amputation, kidney failure and now a tiny cut in my neck is going to do me in…

BA 8: A Key Moment

After over two months in hospital being pumped full of powerful antibiotics and seeing very little reduction in the severity of my infection, it was becoming depressingly clear that the previously suggested “six weeks” of treatment was going to need to be extended…

PA 8: In The Neck Of Time (Part 1)

You may think the most unpleasant thing I experienced during my hospital recovery was the pain of a cracked open chest, or perhaps the discomfort of the phantom menace.
Maybe it wasn’t something physical, the trauma of waking to find yourself short a limb can be fairly unpleasant.

However…

BA 7: With a Little Help from my Friends.

A couple of weeks into my daily routine of waking up, antibiotics, watching Frasier, more antibiotics, going to the hospital café for a dream ring (best part of the day), antibiotics, playing Minecraft, antibiotics for supper and then sleeping, my mum got a phone call from my head teacher…

BA 6: A Reason To Wake

I was a sixteen year old, only half a year out of his latest major open heart surgery and looking forward to getting rid of this infection in order take full advantage of the repairs and tweaks done to my heart. So six weeks in hospital was not just a slap in the face, it was a gut punch which totally winded me…

PA 6: The Phantom Menace

I had been asked while in the ICU if I was experiencing any pain where my leg had been. To my shame I had never heard of this side effect of amputation and so, though it was a very strange thing to ask. I shrugged off the suggestion and said that I couldn’t feel a thing but then again, with all the drugs that were being pumped into me I couldn’t feel much of anything…

BA 5: The Enemy Within

As a family we had spent a number of weeks preparing ourselves for what was to come. Fortunately, it would be nothing like as traumatic as the procedure I had undergone the previous year but still, any surgery comes with its worries.
Then came the phone call…