A Belfast man left housebound by a rare condition is begging the NHS to fly him to England for an operation to save his life.
Alan Foster, 58, has been left with massive overhanging skin because of cellulitis linked to a lymph node deficiency since shedding more than 20 stone.
To make matters worse, he has also had years of other health blows leaving him with a complex physical battle and knock-on mental health issues as a result.
Alan welcomed MailOnline into his home in the Rathcoole Estate in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, near Belfast, to explain his situation and show how his life has been turned upside down because of his debilitating condition – which he fears could kill him if not fixed soon.
He said: ‘I’m lucky because I do have good consultants and the team here are ready to travel to Plymouth to do the procedure.
‘But I need a bariatric theatre which has a hoist above the table, because what they do is lift this [excess skin] up and cut it off.
‘So for that, what they have to worry about is the blood that comes out, so that’s why they put it up in the air so that if the blood comes out on the actual table they can sort hat out straight away.
‘They way they explained it to me was that if I lay on a table flat and they cut it, the blood would just gush and that’s why they need a hoist.
Alan Foster, 58, (pictured) has been left with massive overhanging skin because of cellulitis linked to a lymph node deficiency since shedding more than 20 stone
Alan welcomed MailOnline into his home in the Rathcoole Estate in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, near Belfast, to explain his situation
Alan said he had always been fit and healthy as a younger man and throughout various types of work before the series of health setbacks that began
‘But the plastics team and the infection team in the Royal [Victoria Hospital], I couldn’t say one bad word about them. We can lift the phone at any minute.’
His stepdaughter Nikita Sloan said: ‘There is a team sitting there waiting ready to do it [the operation]. The team’s here in Belfast but they’ll have to travel with him to Plymouth, that’s where it has to be done. They are going to drain most of the blood back into his body, so when they cut they are hoping not much will be lost.’
The family have been touched by the support of friends, family and the local community but they are determined to remain confident in the NHS rather than have to turn to alternative measures such as crowdfunding for private treatment.
Nikita said: ‘We don’t want to go down that route. The NHS class it as a special case, which are very limited. There’s still a long way to go and we’re still on a waiting list but hopefully things are going to change soon.
‘It’s probably a lot of money and we understand that – to fly the surgeons and a whole team from Belfast along with Alan, and then he needs an Air Ambulance back – but it will save his life and give him something to live for.
‘If he gets the operation and we can see him doing well and he’s up and walking and sorting, the first thing we’ll be doing is taking him on a family holiday as he’s missed out on so much for years and years.’
Alan said it’s the second time he’s been chosen as a special case, but the first time he was left disappointed after it was determined that the operation could not be carried out in Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital.
He said: ‘I went right to the pre-op and the room was full of, like, 20 people and everyone was saying ‘yes’ until the anaesthetist had concerns. That was in 2018, that’s the last time I’ve had any push to get it done. Covid didn’t matter, we can’t say Covid delayed anything.’
![He said: 'I need a bariatric theatre which has a hoist above the table, because what they do is lift this [excess skin] up and cut it off'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/03/21/14/96429971-14523211-image-m-86_1742568151027.jpg)
He said: ‘I need a bariatric theatre which has a hoist above the table, because what they do is lift this [excess skin] up and cut it off’
He added: ‘If you look at me from behind you don’t see it and then if I turn around and someone sees it and they don’t know me, they look shocked and go, ”Oh, my God”’
Alan has had more than two decades of suffering stretching back to when he lived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England and began with ‘problems with my liver’ in 2001
Nikita added: ‘The doctors and surgeons said they could do the operation but the anaesthetist said ‘no’, he said he couldn’t guarantee us he couldn’t bring him back round. Apparently they have different types of anaesthetist and they needed one with a different specialism. I think we feel a little bit more confident because we know we can get that now.
‘And even recovery for him looks different and requires funding as he will have to be flown back in an Air Ambulance to our hospital still hooked up to machines. This is something where he won’t be able to walk for months. In physio he will be learning to walk again because his balance isn’t going to be there and because he has balance issues now, with that away his body is not going to know what way to stand and walk.’
Alan has had more than two decades of suffering stretching back to when he lived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England and began with ‘problems with my liver’ in 2001.
He was prescribed the strong painkiller Tramadol but because he was working as a taxi driver he did not want to risk taking the opiate.
Alan said: ‘I’d already had issues with my liver, they said I had a fatty liver and other things, but I told them I wasn’t happy taking this Tramadol.
‘I then went for an in-depth appointment at a medical centre in Blyth, and the doctor there put me straight on steroids – and with six months I put on six stone.’
Alan said he had always been fit and healthy as a younger man and throughout various types of work before the series of health setbacks that began.
His life has been turned upside down because of his debilitating condition – which he fears could kill him if not fixed soon
He added: ‘I just want my life back. All the things people take for granted. I can’t even stand for any length of time without pain’
He continued: ‘I just ballooned and then I came back home to Northern Ireland in 2007 and I went straight to the NHS here and said I need help with this.
‘The guy said to me, ”You have to go out and lose some weight and come back to me.” So I started walking and walking and walking.
‘Now I can’t walk the length of myself. But the very first time I lost 25 stone, and that was just through walking. There was no gastric band or nothing like that. I did it all myself.
‘It’s kicking after kicking to be honest. After losing all that weight and then being told they couldn’t do the operation – I was very, very patient and went to 2018 and right into that pre-op. And then after the pre-op when it was all cancelled that set me back, I felt so wee [small].’
But despite the dramatic weight loss, Alan was then rocked with more health issues, the most serious being a potentially life-threatening deficiency of lymph nodes.
He explained: ‘It’s a genetic thing, but the lymph nodes affect your immune system. So whenever my infection levels rise, the lymph nodes problem means my body is not protected. It can go straight from a bit of an infection or cellulitis to sepsis. The last time I had 20 minutes to get to hospital. It’s constant. It’s a constant nightmare. Sepsis will kill me, and I know that.
‘I have tried so many times to work again. I went back to work and said, ”I’m not going to let it beat me.” When I was working as a taxi driver, I drove a Skoda, when I sat in the seat my belly actually touched the floor of the car. I tried the phones but I can’t sit in a normal chair.
‘I was self-employed so I was paying big insurance premiums every time. I was stopping and starting. I couldn’t manage it so now I get full PIP [Personal Independence Payment] but I want to work again. I want my pride and self-esteem back. I had to sit and watch my partner do all the gardening the other day and it’s soul-destroying – totally soul-destroying.
‘I just want my life back. All the things people take for granted. I can’t even stand for any length of time without pain. I have to sit to go to the toilet, I have no choice.
‘I have trouble with judging the stairs and bang off the walls, I had a fall a couple of weeks ago. I don’t even go to the shops anymore because I get people looking at me and that feels uncomfortable.
‘If you look at me from behind you don’t see it and then if I turn around and someone sees it and they don’t know me, they look shocked and go, ”Oh, my God.”
‘There’s one shop nearby that I will go into – everybody knows me in this estate – but normally if I need anything my partner or my stepdaughter or others will get it for me.
‘It’s affected my mental health. I’ve got arthritis in my feet and ankles, knees, hips… having this on my legs is like somebody hitting me with a four-ton truck and it is constant.
‘What I have is rare. I’ve only ever found one other person with a similar condition and it was on Embarrassing Bodies, a wee man had a belly with the same problem down to his feet. Mine’s just down below the knees but his went right down to his feet – and he died.
‘I have lost six members of my family since 2018 and any of my family that have got to 60 were dead within three to six months – and I’m 59 next month. I haven’t been able to carry any of their coffins either.
‘In the last couple of years there I’ve had mini-strokes. I’ve had four in total and you’re scared the next time it could be a big one. So I need this operation sooner rather than later.
‘This is the thing that kills me – I have grandkids, I’ve got kids, and I can’t go on holiday. I can’t do nothing with any of them, they go on holiday on their own. I’m missing out on memories with them. My phone is full of photos of everybody else going on holiday.
‘If I get this operation it will give me the majority of my life back, because this here [excess skin] lying on my legs is woeful. It’s exhausting, but it’s also a nightmare sleeping. Everything can’t continue and I suffer from anxiety as well, I can never let my mind rest.’
