Caroline Kelbrick Says She Nearly Died After £6k Tummy Tuck
Caroline Kelbrick, a 50-year-old carer from Glasgow, says she developed sepsis days after a tummy tuck in Turkey. Surgeons removed a pus-filled cyst from her abdomen, and her stomach stayed open for months. She spent two weeks in hospital and seven months on specialist dressings.
Caroline Kelbrick, a 50-year-old carer from Glasgow, says she nearly died after a £6k tummy tuck in Turkey, when surgeons in Britain removed a pus-filled cyst she was told was "as big as a baby" in August 2024.
She was diagnosed with sepsis, a life-threatening reaction to infection. Her stomach had to be left open to heal.
Kelbrick said her symptoms began two days after she got home. "I had layers of clothes on lying under a quilt with heating on full but still freezing," she said.
Her stomach had turned hard, and one area was going red. She called NHS 111, the UK's non-emergency health line, and an ambulance took her to hospital. "I thought I was going to die," she said.
Doctors operated within two hours of her arrival at A&E. When she woke, she said, she learned she had sepsis and that a "cyst full of pus" had been removed from her abdomen.
The infection had caused such extensive damage that the wound could not be closed. Kelbrick said she was told it would stay open for up to two years so she could "heal from the inside out".
"It had to be cleaned out every day," she said. "When I walked to the toilet from my bed, I'd have liquid pouring out of the wound."
She spent two weeks in hospital. After that she used a specialist vacuum dressing machine for seven months to draw fluid and infection from her stomach, and she needed dressing changes three times a week.
The mental toll was heavy, she said. "I asked to speak to the psychiatrist because I didn't want to continue living," she said.
Warning signs after the operation
Kelbrick said the problems started in Turkey. She woke from surgery alone in the dark, shaking uncontrollably, and a nurse told her everything was fine.
Four days later she still had drains in and was in pain. She asked for the surgeon, who she said told her everything looked fine and the drains were probably causing the discomfort.
She had the drains removed the morning before flying home that night, one week after the operation. On the plane she felt freezing cold while sweating, and put it down to travelling after surgery.
Why she went abroad
Kelbrick had gone to Turkey for a gastric sleeve, a weight-loss operation, in May 2020. She believed she would not qualify for one on the NHS.
Over three years she lost eight stone, dropping from almost 19 stone to 12 stone and from a size 24 to a size 12. The weight loss left her with a large amount of excess skin around her stomach.
"The excess skin was like a huge burst yoga ball hanging from my waist," she said. It affected her confidence and what she felt comfortable wearing.
Because the gastric sleeve had gone well, she said, she assumed the tummy tuck would too. "I didn't have any worries," she said.
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