Alan O'Gorman's stomach was removed in error. He tells Eithne Donnellan, health correspondent, about how this has changed his life.
Standing 6'2" and aged 26 years Alan O'Gorman looks like a healthy young man in the prime of his life. But what sets him apart is the fact that he has no stomach.
A major blunder at a Dublin hospital in 2002 meant his tissue samples - taken to see if he had an ulcer - got mixed up with those of a 70-year-old cancer patient. As a result his stomach was removed in error. The hospital apologised and he was awarded €450,000 compensation in the High Court.
But how does he manage living without a stomach? "I mean every day I experience some sort of discomfort or pain and I have to live with that. As much as I don't want to, I have to live with it," he explained. "I can cope with it now more so than I was able to a couple of years ago," he said, referring to the fact that he took overdoses of pills four times.
Now he says he has moved on and has learnt to cope with everyday life by eating small amounts often.
If he can eat small amounts does this mean he was left with a tiny bit of his stomach after the operation or some sort of artificial stomach? "No, I've absolutely no stomach."
The food he eats enters the small intestine directly from the oesophagus, and he can still digest some food through his small intestine.
It means, however, that his diet has to be supplemented by monthly vitamin injections. And his energy levels haven't been sufficient to allow him hold down a full-time job.
Dairy products make him feel ill and if he eats too many sweet things it makes his blood sugar rise and he will start getting palpitations. He also has to shy away from spicy foods.
O'Gorman says he didn't even know someone could survive without a stomach before he underwent his surgery at St Vincent's hospital.
"I didn't even think such an operation existed when I was told about it originally - that they had to perform a gastrectomy. 'What's a gastrectomy I wondered?' Then I was told they have to remove all your stomach," he recalls.
A small number of people undergo this operation every year. It was reported last month that two sisters in their 20s in the UK had their stomachs removed to protect them from an inherited form of stomach cancer which killed four close family members, including their father.
O'Gorman, from Rathoath, Co Meath, says it took him about six months to get used to not having a stomach. "My body . . . would say hang on a second, I'm getting like a whole piece of steak in here. Tough meats are difficult," he says.
"I wouldn't be able to sit down in a restaurant and have your normal four-course meal. I've had three courses but I'd put my system under serious pressure and I'd be in quite a lot of pain. There's a lot of cramping. I'd feel tired and I'd start to sweat. I'd get palpitations.
"I prefer to be on my own when I'm eating now. I've sort of become more flatulent when I eat or I drink, and it's unpleasant having to hold it in when you're in the presence of others."
His daily eating routine includes tea and toast in the morning, a snack an hour or two later, then half a sandwich for lunch, and he would need to eat again an hour or so after that.
For Christmas dinner he expects to eat one slice of turkey, some stuffing, some potato and "lash a load of gravy on top of that because the more I can mash up my food, the easier it is on my system".
His nightmare began in February 2002 when he was admitted to St Vincent's for an appendix operation. During the operation an area of inflammation was noted on his stomach, suggestive of a perforated gastric ulcer, and a tissue sample was taken and sent for analysis. In the laboratory it got mixed up with those of a cancer patient.
He has never been able to find out precisely how the mix-up occurred. Initially he was told a pathology registrar had pricked her finger with a sharp object and had left the lab for medical attention. Later he was told the registrar had had to go to a pre-arranged meeting in the middle of looking at his sample and this had led to the mix-up.
In the High Court last week Mr Justice Vivian Lavan said who exactly was to blame could not be established because none of the four pathology department defendants was called in evidence. The proper form of court investigation into the matter had been "precluded by a decision, tactical or strategic", taken by the hospital, he said.
Now that the case is over it's a load off O'Gorman's mind but he is still bitter about what happened to him. "The anger never leaves you."
He was in college studying theology before the blunder. He tried to go back but he couldn't concentrate. Then he took a full-time job with a bookmaker but only lasted four months. He didn't tell others in the company what had happened him.
"I was uncomfortable eating around others and going out to lunch with them. I just felt that I wasn't able to nourish myself enough throughout the day and I didn't want to be seen constantly eating."
He works part-time now in a photo shop and has been studying multimedia part-time. But, having missed much of the last term as a result of his court case, he feels now he will take the rest of the year off and start afresh again next year.
His view of the healthcare system is unsurprisingly not good, given what he has been through. "It's in a mess," he says. He believes errors in hospitals are often swept under the carpet and a lot more energy should be put into confronting them and ensuring they do not recur.
He approached the then health minister Micheál Martin in late 2003 and asked him to inform all other hospitals of what happened to him to prevent it happening anyone else.
But he was disappointed to be told later that Mr Martin couldn't intervene as it might prejudice the case he was taking against the hospital.