A dad has had a tumour the weight of a large bag of potatoes that looked "like something out of Alien" removed from his back.
The extraordinary 10-hour-operation has given former union organiser Kevin O’Neil, 47, the chance to see his three sons grow up, the Daily Record reports.
He still suffers pain from the operation to remove the 10lb tumor, but Kevin is extremely grateful to surgeons Bill Walker and Malcolm Will for keeping him alive.
Kevin had a rare condition called myopericytoma , a soft tissue tumor, but it is extremely rare for it to become malignant.
However, in Kevin’s case that’s exactly what happened after 10 years of being treated for benign tumours which had already resulted in him losing several ribs and several bones in his spine.
Kevin, of Inverkeithing, Fife, was an area organiser for Unison when he first realised something was wrong.
He said: “I was training to do a bike ride from Land’s End to John O’ Groats and kept getting a sharp, fiery pain in the right hand side of my stomach going up to my chest and then pain in my back going right up to my shoulder blade."
He went to the doctors in 2006 but he said: “They didn’t have a clue what it was.” Eventually after four years of tests and several in patient stays at hospital for morphine to control the pain he was told he had a paraspinal tumour in his middle back.
Kevin admitted: “When most people are told they have a tumour it feels world ending but I felt relieved because for years they didn’t know what was wrong with me and there were times when people would ask if it may be psychological.
“There were times I began to doubt myself.”
An appointment was made to see a specialist surgeon and a delicate operation was carried out to remove it in 2011, even although it was benign.
He was cut from shoulder to stomach and his ribs were cracked open to allow surgeons access to deflate the lung so they could remove the tumour. But it carried a huge risk to his life - and one wrong move could have rendered him paralysed.
And the operation has left him with only two ribs on one side of his ribcage.
When the tumour was removed it disintegrated but surgeons found two tears in it which had caused bleeding and was the source of Kevin’s pain.
Although the tumour wasn’t cancerous, because of its rapid growth they treated it the same way as cancer. But they could not remove it all and in October the same year it began to regrow.
Man has monster 10lb tumour removed from his back
The extraordinary 10-hour-operation has given former union organiser Kevin O’Neil, 47, the chance to see his three sons grow up, the Daily Record reports.
He still suffers pain from the operation to remove the 10lb tumor, but Kevin is extremely grateful to surgeons Bill Walker and Malcolm Will for keeping him alive.
Kevin had a rare condition called myopericytoma , a soft tissue tumor, but it is extremely rare for it to become malignant.
However, in Kevin’s case that’s exactly what happened after 10 years of being treated for benign tumours which had already resulted in him losing several ribs and several bones in his spine.
Kevin, of Inverkeithing, Fife, was an area organiser for Unison when he first realised something was wrong.
He said: “I was training to do a bike ride from Land’s End to John O’ Groats and kept getting a sharp, fiery pain in the right hand side of my stomach going up to my chest and then pain in my back going right up to my shoulder blade."
He went to the doctors in 2006 but he said: “They didn’t have a clue what it was.” Eventually after four years of tests and several in patient stays at hospital for morphine to control the pain he was told he had a paraspinal tumour in his middle back.
Kevin admitted: “When most people are told they have a tumour it feels world ending but I felt relieved because for years they didn’t know what was wrong with me and there were times when people would ask if it may be psychological.
“There were times I began to doubt myself.”
An appointment was made to see a specialist surgeon and a delicate operation was carried out to remove it in 2011, even although it was benign.
He was cut from shoulder to stomach and his ribs were cracked open to allow surgeons access to deflate the lung so they could remove the tumour. But it carried a huge risk to his life - and one wrong move could have rendered him paralysed.
And the operation has left him with only two ribs on one side of his ribcage.
When the tumour was removed it disintegrated but surgeons found two tears in it which had caused bleeding and was the source of Kevin’s pain.
Although the tumour wasn’t cancerous, because of its rapid growth they treated it the same way as cancer. But they could not remove it all and in October the same year it began to regrow.
Man has monster 10lb tumour removed from his back
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