AN ASPIRING footballer’s life was turned upside down when she underwent a nose operation and woke up unable to urinate. 

Kim Macfarlane had a bang on the nose when she went to head the ball playing as captain for Dunfermline Athletics Ladies and in the months following had an operation to fix her squint nose. 

During her hospital stay, she developed Fowlers Syndrome, a condition that affects one in a million women, who are unable to urinate.

That was two years ago and, ever since, Kim has had to fight extreme pain, mental health issues and other physical problems as a consequence. 

The 23-year-old, from Dunfermline, said: “After my nose operation I was asked to go to the toilet before I went home but I could just not urinate, even though I felt like I was bursting. 

“I had to be fitted with a suprapubic catheter that goes into your stomach but by January 2016, I ended up spending a month in Victoria Hospital.

"I just don’t have any sensation of needing to go to the toilet and you end up in retention because your bladder just fills and fills.

"I started self-harming as the pain affected my emotions and I was stuck in a room by myself the whole time. I have been in and out of hospital and have had several operations that have been unsuccessful that has all made me want to take my life on a number of occasions.”

Kim’s GP practice hadn’t even heard of Fowler’s Syndrome before she was diagnosed and experts have been left puzzled as to why it started after a nose operation. 

The incurable condition normally begins in young women after childbirth due to the failure to relax of the bladder’s sphincter muscle.

In the last year, Kim has taken several overdoses that led her to being sectioned last summer.

While she was being treated, she still couldn’t see a way out and jumped off a bridge onto the M90, breaking two vertebrate in the process. 

Another operation to stimulate the bladder nerve failed in January of this year and just a month later, Kim ended up in intensive care following an overdose. 

She continued: “I’ve been diagnosed with a personality disorder and chronic suicidal ideation as I just don’t see any sort of future for myself.

"I was working as a care assistant before but I’ve never been able to get get back to work and I can’t see how my dream of being a nurse can become a possibility. 

“I was captain of Dunfermline ladies, had won several awards and was coaching too.

“Practically, I live with a tube and bag attached to me at all times and it’s causing other health problems with my bowels because they’re both connected to the same nerve. 

“Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have gone for the ball or why did I have the operation but I guess anyone would feel the same.

“In the future, it is possible that I will have my bladder removed, that’s scary but I think I will have a better quality of life.

"I really miss football but I’m currently photographing Bayside ladies and I hope that I will be able to play for them some day when my health improves.”