I look ‘butchered after botched’ £3,500 tummy tuck left me with giant hip-to-hip scar
A MUM says she's been left looking “butchered” after a £3,500 tummy tuck turned into a nightmare.
Emma Bestall, 34, turned to surgery abroad, in Eastern Europe, in a bid to banish her “overhang”.
The salon owner wanted to lose her mum tum after having three kids and subsequently losing 4.5 stone.
But her dreams of a washboard stomach slipped away when 10 days after returning to the UK, she was hospitalised because her surgery wound got infected.
Medics had no choice to open Emma's stomach from hip-to-hip in order to flush the infection out.
It left her with an incision so large that she needed a skin graft from her thigh to cover it, and she now has a thick band of scarring across her hips.
Read more on botched surgery
Emma says although partner, Liam Thomas, 37, tries to reassure her, she dislikes her body just as much as before she had the op.
Emma, from Sleaford, Lincolnshire, said: "I wanted a tummy tuck because I've had three kids and lost four-and-a-half stone and my tummy wasn't very nice. I had an overhang.
"I'd hoped it would shape my body a bit more, I wanted a flat tummy.
"I was expecting a scar but this one is about two-and-a-half inches wide and it's tight around my stomach.
"I'm not comfortable in my skin and I feel like I'm wrapped in duct tape.
Most read in Health
"I'm struggling with my body, it's horrible. People compliment me and it upsets me because they don't know what it looks like underneath.
"It's not painful but it feels tight and uncomfortable, it's just massive and ugly.
"I look like I was butchered."
Emma researched the clinic in Eastern Europe for three years before she made the decision to go ahead with the surgery, and says she had saved up for years.
As soon as she stepped off the plane Emma claims she went straight to the clinic and had surgery soon after.
Emma said: "As soon as we got off the plane, we went to the clinic and I was in surgery after about two hours so it all felt a bit rushed.
"I was quite anxious and upset when they were putting me to sleep because I felt so nervous.
"As soon as I woke up, I just couldn't believe what I'd done to myself. I was in that much pain I couldn't walk or go to the toilet.
"I woke up in agony and I was crying my eyes out until they gave me morphine.
"I didn't look at my stomach for about a week and a half, even when they changed my bandages, I couldn't bear to look at myself."
After being discharged from the Eastern European clinic Emma, who is mum to Harley Connell, 14, Tilly-May Connell, 12, and six-year-old Oakley Thomas, returned to the UK.
Emma continued to clean the wound but she noticed infection seeping through her bandages.
She said: "It looked ok at first but in the space of a week, my tummy started to open up.
"When I was changing my bandages, I noticed that it was leaking but I've never had surgery before so I thought that was normal.”
But thankfully, Emma decided to go to Lincolnshire County A&E where doctors told her it was badly infected and transferred her to Nottingham City Hospital.
There, medics opened Emma's stomach and flushed the infection out.
She was given a VAC (vacuum-assisted closure) - a type of dressing that sucks air out a wound, helping it to keep clean and heal faster.
The wound was so wide that skin had to be taken from Emma’s thigh to cover it, and she was left with a two-and-a-half-inch thick scar.
Emma said: "They couldn't close me properly because it's so wide and I still have to drive to Nottingham every other week for a check-up."
Six months on from her operation Emma still has check-ups at hospital and is now urging anyone getting cosmetic surgery abroad to do their research thoroughly.
Emma said: "The scar has healed but it's affected my mental health more than I could ever have imagined, I don't like looking at it.
"My other half reassures me but it doesn't matter what anyone says to me.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Read More on The Sun
"I've been saving up for years and it cost £3,500 which is good compared to other places.
"If you're thinking of getting any surgery done, please make sure you do your research first."
