As noted before, Major League Wrestling talent Davey Boy Smith Jr. underwent emergency surgery earlier this month for appendicitis and appendix removal that also led to him being diagnosed with diverticulitis and having part of his colon removed.
A recent episode of the McGuire on Wrestling podcast featured Smith Jr. as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Smith Jr. giving his thoughts about the cause of his recent health issues.
“Basically, I had some symptoms that were extremely painful right around Canadian Thanksgiving time. I was having dinner, and usually I’m the type that, Thanksgiving dinner, I’m having at least a couple plates full of everything. I was extremely constipated and not feeling good. I was barely able to finish off a plate. So then the next day, I was just putting it off on, ‘Oh, maybe something I ate wasn’t that good,’ and everyone else seemed fine. The pain and swelling in my stomach started to really increase, and it was getting really painful. It was like a swelling. Picture your stomach here just swelling, but the rest of your stomach’s flat. It’s just an extreme pain, like if someone is non-stop booting you in the guts or shooting you in the guts with a shotgun. I can’t say what that feels like, but that’s what I could compare it to. So then I went to the walk-clinic, and the doctor there tests my urine. She says that there’s a high white blood cell count, and there’s blood in the urine too. I couldn’t see it, but they examine it differently. So he chalked it off to being a urinary tract infection, and it’ll be better in a few days, and take antibiotics. So I said, ‘Alright.’ She goes, ‘But if it does get worse, go to emergency.
So to see if you have diverticulitis, they have to do what’s called a CT scan. They go, ‘Well, we can’t get you in for that, but we have to take care of this first. We can get you in for a CT scan but it’s gonna be in a few hours, and in a few hours, we’re gonna be doing surgery. So they cut me open, and then they found that I have something called diverticulosis, which is a little bit different than diverticulitis. It’s the same thing, but when they opened me up, they saw that my colon was very infected and swollen. Basically, what diverticulosis is where they cut, like Brock Lesnar had a foot of his coming cut, and I think his came back again, or it came, happened like mine, and then it was diverticulosis, which I’m praying doesn’t happen, where they cut a foot of his colon, whereas mine, they just trimmed inch off. They trim the infected area. It’s not as bad as cutting a foot off your colon. When you think a foot, you think, ‘Oh,’ but you expand your colon out and stretch it, it’s 12 feet or something. So then they came in and they vacuumed a bunch of the infection out, and they do what’s like a trimming, like a haircut. Then on severe antibiotics after that because the colon’s infected. Basically what happens is, there’s the issue with the colon, but it’s caused by the appendix, and what they said to me, I’m just a rare case, but some people have a longer colon than others. Mine was pushing against my appendix. When it got infected, it just was pushing more into it. Whatever’s blocking the appendix there, it’s causing…it was both. So then they cut and trimmed, so I have three different incisions in my stomach now.”
Smith Jr. also provided a health update on his recovery from emergency surgery.
“The good news is, it looks like I’ll be alright, and I gotta get a colonoscopy in a month or two to make sure everything’s good and just hopefully it doesn’t come back. Brock Lesnar’s came back, and he had to get the diverticulosis, which is the full foot of his colon removed. I can’t attribute this to anything. People said that, in Brock Lesnar’s case, ‘Oh, well, it’s because he’s been eating wild animals that he’s shooting in the wild. My aunt Allison had the same thing, and a lot of people say it’s genetic. My aunt Allison’s a heathy librarian, and believe me, she’s not eating wild meat that she’s hunting. Believe me, she’s not eating wild meat that she’s hunting. She’s eating stuff from Safeway. But they can’t attribute it to a certain kind of diet. It happens. It could hereditary, like my Aunt Allison has the exact same thing, and hers was okay after a while. So it’s just knock on wood and hope for the best.”
Smith Jr. also gave his thoughts on a potential timetable for his return to wrestling.
“Hopefully, I’m back in the gym slowly the next week or so. They gave me a good four-week prognosis that, even though it was the appendix being removed, which is a two-to-four week, it’s more like a month. When you get the diverticulosis, it’s a good month of recovery. We’re going on week three of it now, so I should be be good. It’s just gonna be a slow recovery, and I’ll be good by December 16, and as long as we’re going and I’m training and feeling good. I just gotta take it day by day and see where we go. But as far as I know, I’ll be good by then. It’s just gonna be a rough time getting back in the gym. It’s a shock I’ve never had.”
Transcript h/t: Fightful.com