BY KEVIN SAWYER – After being put on an enormous waiting list, and having his surgical operation cancelled twice, a British engineer decided he had to literally take his life into his own hands. Graham Smith, of Lancashire, England, had undergone intestinal bowel surgery back in 2001 but the surgeon, it seems, didn’t properly finish the operation.
Stitches from the bowel operation were left sticking out of his abdomen and he has since developed a life threatening blood infection called septicemia because of it. Smith realized that he would die from the blood infection and eventual blood poisoning if something wasn’t done real soon to eliminate the stitches. He went to his hospital in 2011 an told them about his situation. He was put on a waiting list and, as mentioned, had two scheduled surgeries cancelled since then.
Engineer Graham Smith
So, he borrowed some titanium surgical equipment from a dentist friend and decided to do it himself. Graham, in an interview with the BBC, said that, “I tried to do it through the normal channels but I had septicemia. I didn’t make the decision lightly. I was desperate but I had to take control of it and I was not prepared to sit and die on a waiting list.”
The nylon stitching was hard and tightly knotted. There was blood and pain but Smith pressed on. He said that he just couldn’t cut them because they would have retreated into his abdomen and the blood infection would have spread that much more quickly. So, in the end, he decided to try and untie the knotted stitches and then just pull them out. His operation on himself was a success, he declared, and he feels great after 15 years of being hunched over and in pain.
And, of course, England’s Royal College of Surgeons was in an uproar over it as was the hospital who claimed that he had a consultation next week to see what could be done. Sometimes in life, you just have to take things into your own hands.
PHOTO CREDITS: BBC