Okay I have finally got it together to at least start this section of the story, I am just going to keep telling it and see where we get to, this part of the story is very long and parts of it are very fuzzy in my mind so I may need to talk to people who were around at the time for more details. I slept a whole lot of the time at this stage as my body was simply drained.

I was now in my isolated room to try to help keep infections away which seemed very sensible to me at the time, the only problem with it was that it was the height of a very hot summer and the room was absolutely roasting. Needless to say when you are already running a very high temperature this does not help. At times there were fans either side of my bed to try to keep me cool. The difficult part was that because of the way my temperature was spiking so rapidly, I was going into shock every couple of hours. When this happened I could not stop shaking and felt freezing cold, despite dripping in sweat and having a bright red face.

And now on to the part that I was really not looking forward to telling. After some time I noticed that a small blister had appeared on my scrotum. Now I was not overly concerned about this because I am not easily alarmed by things and generally would just let things pan out and sort themselves out.. This was completely naive on my part, and again shows how much I didn't understand the fact that I had absolutely no immune system.

Anyway after a day or so the small blister had developed into a very large and oozing sore. My entire scrotum had swelled to about 3 times its normal size. Now I was alarmed! So after telling the doctors about the problem I was having they became VERY alarmed and the cogs of battle started to turn.

Within an hour the top dermatology team in the hospital was in for a look at the infection. There was a lot of murmuring and a lot whispering, but all in all nobody seemed to know exactly what it was. The dermatology consultant was one of the most kind people I met in the hospital and she made what was a very embarrassing ordeal for me a lot easier. She was extremely concerned with my comfort and did everything possible to try to make me comfortable, which was difficult given my current condition.

So I got sent for a biopsy which to be honest I was terrified about. Again to procedure was done by such a nice person who really cared about my comfort level, it was really not a big problem. At this point I was really starting to struggle to move around so I was moved most places in a wheelchair, which I hate but I didn't know it was about to get worse.

The biopsy was sent off for analysis and for a day or so I heard no more. There was lots of murmurings about how it was to be treated. In the mean time I was rapidly deteriorating and my temperature spikes were becoming even more frequent.

I was sent for some very painful echo grams on the infected area which did not really show up much but were done as a precaution. During one of these a urologist called Dilly Little asked if I minded if she took a look because she had heard about the case and though she might have an idea. At this point I was really willing to let anybody who though they had an idea take a look because I was in a lot of pain. She took a look and made a major call to bring me into surgery that very night. Needless to say I was completely terrified at this stage.

So I was taken down to surgery almost immediately. I had at this point been told that what I had was in fact gangrene. Now they were sure that it was one of two types. Ms Little was positive that it was the type that required surgical removal. The other kind would need treatment by steroids. The problem is that if it was diagnosed incorrectly the treatment would have been fatal very quickly. So basically it was up to someone to make the right call and make it quickly. Which Ms. Little duly did.

On the way down to the operating theatre I was very quiet, full of nerves but in the knowledge that there was no alternative to this. The surgical team were great, despite my nerves one of the lads actually got a laugh out of me, just before he put me under the anaesthetic, so I didn't even notice going under.

I woke up absolutely terrified and not able to breath very well at all. I had a tube going up my nose into my stomach, a catheter and urine bag, and 5 tubes coming out of my neck. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. All I knew was that I was scared and couldn't breath.

When I was brought back to my room, my Dad was there. All I remember from that day was him saying: "How are ya kid?" to which I answered... "I'm grand, how was your day" and then passed out asleep. This entire time is extremely blurry to me and I really don't remember very much about it. The next few days in particular were hell. Within a day or so of getting out of surgery I was greeted with a bone infection in my leg, which was discovered after my ankle swelled badly. After a very difficult bone scan (I could not move my legs at all at this stage), I was put in plaster up to my thigh. This really put the icing on the cake for what was the worst week of my life. I was in terrible form.

I was unable to eat anything at all and was even struggling with fluids. For this reason they had me on a feed which went directly into a line in my neck. I was also on fluid drips 24/7. They were also draining my stomach every couple of hours through a tube in my nose. Every time they did this I gagged uncontrollably. Eventually at my request the removed the tube. It was driving me insane. Getting it removed was not exactly pleasant either though!

Needless to say, the surgery had left some serious wounds which had to be re-dressed several times a day. This was very painful and at first embarrassing, though I got used to it after time. I was more or less to spend the next four weeks in bed.

Check the next instalment for more on this part. I'm going to have a chat with some people who were around at the time because they will most likely have a far better memory of a lot of this.

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