Have you ever had surgery?  Well, if you have and happen to have gone through it successfully without any complications, then consider yourself blessed. I have heard many horrible stories where people just like you and me go into surgery and come out feeling worse than they went in because of a mistake by the surgeon.  Some have ended up having the wrong parts removed or amputated, while others have died from errors by surgeons.

I lost my sister when she went through childbirth in Ghana. A doctor made a mistake during the delivery of her child when she left half of her caesarean wound unstitched.  The doctor stitched half and then covered everything else with band aid.  My sister was instructed not to remove the band aid until she saw the doctor in two weeks. Within a week, she started seeing liquid oozing out her wound. She was rushed to the hospital by her husband and she died later from infected wound. It was after her death that the other doctors discovered the mistake the previous doctor made.

I read a story where a man’s right healthy leg was wrongly amputated.  He ended up being double amputee from someone’s error because the infected left leg had to still be amputated.

Last year, a young boy’s penis was mistakenly cut off by a nurse during surgery at Tamale. These and many more horror stories of sometimes simple and minor surgeries that have gone fatal are becoming too common.

Sometimes, while under the knife, it is there that resident surgeons get to have their practice. They are trained during your procedure, thus, playing with your life. At that moment, it is only God who can intervene to safe you, so that nothing goes wrong during the procedure.

I feel blessed every day when I consider the number of times I have been under the knife for things that happen to me that I have no control over.  I come out safely not because of the surgeon’s attentiveness or experience, but only because of the grace of God.

I say this because while under the knife during one of my surgeries though sedated, and felt no pain and asleep, I heard the surgeons talking and laughing during the procedure….interesting.

I read an article this morning on www.dailymail.co.uk that prompted me to write this piece.  A woman who was five months pregnant has died after a surgery to remove her appendix.

The pregnant woman had been experiencing some severe abdominal pain, so she decided to go to Queens Hospital in Romford, East London. Fortunately, doctors were correctly able to diagnose her appendicitis only to have the wrong organ removed on the operating table.

Apparently, she was left unsupervised in the hands of trainee surgeons who ended up removing her ovary instead of her appendix.  She was discharged to go home, but reported back to the hospital after two weeks because the pain was still persistent.  She was readmitted due to her severe pain.

Her appendix had dangerously inflamed due to the failure to remove it, which caused her a miscarriage then later her death.  A pathology report revealed that she died of severe blood infection caused by untreated appendicitis.

This is such a sad story, and knowing that it can happen to anyone makes me appreciate my life even more and continuously give glory to God for his endless protection over our lives no matter where we are…