Clubb to undergo kidney surgery
Wigan prop Tony Clubb insists he’ll be back before the end of the season, despite being ruled out for the foreseeable future with a kidney problem.
The former London Broncos player told the club’s official website he has been struggling with back pain which has been been diagnosed as kidney trouble and he will now undergo surgery.
“Since pre-season I’ve been struggling with back pain and I missed the trip to Catalans because of it and the Leigh game too,” he said.
“I woke up one night and couldn’t walk I was in that much pain. I rang our doctor Chris Brookes and our physio Jo Seddon at 4am in the morning and said this isn’t backache guys it’s more than that.
“They sent me for a scan and I saw a Urologist who took a scan of my kidney and basically found out I had a kink in the tube leading into my kidney which had actually killed it off.
“The doctors I saw said we’d be able to manage it and were happy for me to keep playing, it couldn’t get any worse than it already was but I couldn’t take on as much fluid or protein or the supplements that I would normally take going into games.
“When I was taking on a lot of water all at once it was filling my kidneys up and causing me a lot of pain. It was starting to have an effect on my performance though as I was getting five minutes in and I was absolutely wiped out and dehydrated.
“The other week I played in the Castleford game and the pain came on pretty bad and I got sent to hospital. Brookesy and Jo said it was probably time I had it sorted and had the kidney removed.
“It was the right call. I didn’t want to be in pain any more and I also knew it was starting to affect my rugby. I hadn’t been playing well because of it, so I’m glad that we’ve made the call.
“In just over a week I’ll have the operation to remove the kidney and then hopefully I’ll be on the mend straight after that.
“It should be a reasonable turnaround and I should be back in training in two to three months’ time and quite a few athletes only have one kidney, many people are also only born with one so I’ll be fine. It’s a routine operation these days and hopefully I’ll only be in and out of hospital within a couple of days.
“Thanks to everyone who has contacted me lately to wish me well. It really does mean alot to any player when they get messages like that off the fans so thank you for that.”
