11.10.2026
At the end of August 2025, I had a big leg operation since my right leg was twice the size of my left leg. Six keyhole surgery cuts in my leg and they burnt off the superficial veins inside with radio waves. It took me about three months to get back into work.
The operation was for varicose veins which I developed by putting on weight and being inactive over a long illness I had had years ago, an illness that had lasted years. Extra pressure was put on the legs since then because over the course of the last 1,777 days (4 years and 10 months), I walked 27,972,819 steps over 21,357.5 km, with a daily average of 16, 105 steps (stats from my Garmin watch). To put 21,357.5 kilometers into perspective, this massive distance is equivalent to 13,270.9 miles, which is over halfway around the entire Earth or nearly identical to the total surveyed length of the Great Wall of China. Not to mention all the standing that I was doing in the museums and art galleries, as well as the heavy weight training I have been doing regularly.
Before the operation, the doctor told me that there was less than 1% chance of getting a blood clot. And also that there was less than 1% chance of getting nerve damage.
After the operation, there was no aftercare from the NHS. This was my first ever operation so it is not like I knew what things were like. The leg they’d operated on was inflamed and sore as hell. After about three days of this, I called up to ask my nurse friend, who is an elderly and retired lady to have a regular chat that we have. She started asking me about the operation and then she realised that I had a blood clot. She saved my life. She told me to go to A & E. Without her, I wouldn’t have known that anything was wrong because I hadn’t been given any warning or any instructions about what to look out for. That was the first time that the NHS could have killed me.
The next time was after the blood clot injection had been given. They put me on anticoagulants. But then, again, they did not tell me that I should not wear the stockings they had given me after the first operation with the keyhole cuts. Stockings increase the risk of blood clots. So this was strike two.
Strike three was again caused by miscommunication. While I was on the anticoagulants, I was taking the painkiller that they had prescribed me after the first operation, which was Ibuprofen. The combination of the two drugs could have torn apart my stomach.
The reason I am writing this short article is that research using ONS Census data shows that people from several minority ethnic backgrounds (including Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Indian men and women) are significantly more likely to die in a hospital rather than at home or in hospice care, even after adjusting for age, location, and deprivation. Because this is the kind of treatment that we get from the NHS. It is us that have to bear the cost of the inefficiency, miscommunication and disconnections fostered in the National Health Service. And the other reason I am writing about my experience is that they get away with it. Nothing ever happens to them. They kill with impunity. The whole system is corrupt. We are talking about highly educated nurses and doctors that work in these institutions that are funded by the taxes that you and me pay. And instead of giving us our service that we have paid for, they try to kill us instead.
