Dave Smith
Bristol, England, United Kingdom
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5 years ago I had a life changing accident....
Whilst traveling in Cambodia I had a serious motorbike collision and suffered severe abdominal trauma. I spent 4 days in a Battambong provincial hospital unable to eat, in severe pain with a diagnosis of bruising. My friends eventually got me transferred to the General Hospital in Phnom Penh, where they performed a CT scan. The scan revealed I had ruptured my pancreas. This meant I needed surgery and was to be transferred to Bangkok. I spent 2 days waiting to be transferred, still nil by mouth.
The morning of my transfer, whilst being rolled, receiving a bed bath my pancreas tore. It was the most pain have felt.
That afternoon I was flown to Bangkok, where I was operated on by midnight that day. They removed the tale (half) of my pancreas and my spleen.
The surgery took 5 1/2 hours, 15 litres of saline water, 4 units of blood and a left me with a scar from rib cage to my bottom of my stomach (36 staples). I spent 6 weeks in hospital, suffered a colapsed left lung post surgery and had to learn to walk again. I had lost 25% of my body mass and was prescribed penicillin for life.
It's been 5 years since my accident and put all of the trauma behind me. It was a life changing event but not in a negative way. It has given me more reasons to try new things and the determination to work harder when things don't go the way i expected.