RUNAWAY BAY, St Ann — Imagine faeces constantly flowing from a woman’s abdomen and doctors telling her that they can do nothing to help.

While many may not even have the courage to create this imagination, it is the reality of 54-year-old Pamella Hepburn.

With her abdomen pressed to a pillow for comfort, her eyes filled with tears and through growls of pain, Hepburn told her horrific story to the Jamaica Observer at her Runway Bay, St Ann home recently.

According to the mother of four, her ordeal started after a surgery expected to rid her of years of excruciating abdominal pains went bad. Since then she has done four surgeries, none of which has helped. Now she lives in constant pain and misery and is crying out for assistance.

“It started in 2003. I start having some terrible pains in my belly,” Hepburn recalled while grimacing in pain.

The woman who then lived at Mount Moriah, St Ann said that she made numerous trips to various doctors. In 2007 she was admitted to the Spaulding Hospital before being transferred to the Mandeville Regional Hospital. However, the numerous tests done did not reveal the cause of her problem.

It was then that she decided to go to the University Hospital of the West Indies. The series of tests continued. However, she was soon diagnosed with having a cyst.

“They say I have to do a surgery in October of 2007. I did the surgery the 19th of October,” she recalled.

Shortly after that surgery, Hepburn said complications developed and she was forced to do another surgery on October 24, 2007.

The woman said she was told that her intestines were attached to the uterus. Her uterus was later removed; however, in the process, her intestines apparently got damaged, she told the Sunday Observer.

According to her, after the second surgery a decision was made to have the laceration heal on its own. However, this did not happen. Instead, an opening with a piece of flesh protruding was seen.

“They say it would come back together; but it has not come back” she stated, tears filling her eyes.

Hepburn said that since then, the cut has never been healed and she continues to have pain, almost eight years after it all started.

“From then, it is in and out of the hospital. After I did the second surgery I was in the hospital for seven weeks. I have done four surgeries,” the distressed woman said.

In spite of all these surgeries, Hepburn continues to suffer. She is constantly faced with cleaning faeces from her abdomen, sometimes more than 12 times daily, she said.

She said that sometimes the faeces pour ‘like a river’ forcing her to go to the hospital, where even medical practitioners struggle to keep it under control.

“Once, the nurses clean it for the doctor to come and look at it. By the time the doctor comes, he asked the nurse why they did not clean it,” she recounted.

Additionally, the former businesswoman constantly vomits whenever she eats, and is in pain day and night.

“Mi no know what to do,” Hepburn said, while having to break several times during the interview.

“To be living in this situation it is so sad. I don’t have a life. I can’t go to church, I can’t go to the supermarket.

“As mi eat it come up, and mi can’t stay hungry for long. There is no muscle or tissue in the belly so it is very uncomfortable,” she explained.

Hepburn said that following the last surgery she did, there were three openings in her abdomen. She said she observed another recently.

“That mean it would be four now. It very uncomfortable. I groan day and I groan night,” she said, lamenting too that the condition had drained her financially and had placed her family under significant emotional pressure.

“Every minute I have to be changing gauze. Sometimes I can’t even buy the medication,” she went on.

Before her illness, Hepburn operated a grocery shop. However, she was forced to close it due to her situation. She now depends on her children.

To explain the severity of the pain that she feels, Hepburn revealed that she was once placed on morphine and even that failed to rid her of her constant pain.

She said that in 2009, the St Ann’s Bay Hospital attempted to rectify the situation. However, the problem continues.

“It’s like a trench in my belly now,” she said, revealing that her abdomen had become extra soft and had become more delicate to deal with daily.

Additionally, Hepburn believes that the initial problem she faced was not corrected as she thinks that some of the pain she still feels now is as a result of that.

“Sometimes it feels like a razor just slice through the belly,” Hepburn stated.

Although it has been suggested to her that she sues the medical facility, she said that all she wants is the problem to be corrected.

She said that one doctor told her he could do a procedure to get an opening to her side, instead of her abdomen. However, the procedure could cost over $1 million.

Hepburn said that it is not only about the faeces which comes through her abdomen, but that sometimes it gushes for days and is often followed by a strong smell.

“It is just God’s grace and mercy keeping me because it’s a very rough life,” the distraught woman stated.

“I am living in misery. My family is so stressed. They are tired of hearing me crying and groaning in pain. I am still keeping faith that God will send the right doctor that is able to help me live a normal life. Mi alive but mi no have no life,” she lamented.