A new Dundee University medical student has overcome severe health problems, including the loss of a kidney as a baby and later liver disease, to start training to be a doctor this week.
Stuart Thomson, who celebrated his 18th birthday on Sunday, was born with kidney disease and had to have one of the organs removed when he was only six months old.
He has survived with one kidney and, aged eight, his problems increased severely when he fell ill while on holiday in Lanzarote.
Stuart, from Forfar, contracted liver disease and spent months in hospital undergoing life-saving treatment.
The former Forfar Academy pupil refused to buckle under the illnesses though and vowed to turn his hospital stays into life-changing experiences and become a doctor.
Stuart, who has been in remission from autoimmune sclerosing cholangitis (liver disease) for the past three or four years, says he is looking forward to his studies as one of this year’s new intake of “freshers”.
He said: “When I was in hospital it was my second home for a long time and I got to know the doctors and nurses very well.
“It took a long time for them to diagnose what was wrong with me and I thought then that I wanted to become a doctor as I didn’t want other people to go through the same thing.
“I have technically been in remission since I was 14 or 15 but I know it could flare up at any time, it could be today or tomorrow. I’m feeling fit and healthy just now but I would know if it was coming on again.
“I can’t remember losing my kidney of course. I was only six months old and as I got older it was under control.
“I’m really looking forward to starting my course, although I did have some doubts to be honest, just because it’s such a difficult course.”
Stuart’s mum Fiona, 40, who works at Ninewells Hospital with Tayside Pharmaceuticals, said she and his dad Keith, 55, a machine operator with Forfar firm Don & Low, were unbelievably proud of him.
“I don’t have the words to describe how proud we are,” she said.
“We both just wanted him to get through his schooling and to have a good life after what he went through. The worst thing was that we were in uncharted waters, we had to take one day at a time, it was very hard.
“He was ill for a very long time. At first we thought it was baby colic but it was discovered he was born with kidney disease and it was diagnosed at six weeks old.
“It had to be removed when he was six months old and there is just one kidney working fine now, with only slight renal failure. At the moment he is on several tablets.
“While we were on holiday in Lanzarote when he was eight he got liver failure, but the doctors took about six months to diagnose that because they thought it was something he had picked up on holiday.
“It was very rare but he was very unwell for months and he had to be fed by a tube for a year because of ulcerative colitis.
“I was beside myself and took a year off work to look after him.
“He must have missed about a year all told from school, it was very bad but look at what’s come out of it now. He did very well after that and he got an unconditional acceptance to study medicine at Dundee last year.
“We’re very proud of him.”