Aberdeen pianist shares battle with ‘flesh-eating’ disease that took his fingers

An Aberdeen musician describes feeling as though he had “aliens” under his skin after contracting a rare flesh-eating bacteria.

Prog-rock keyboard player Mike Stobbie, 65, woke up from a two-month-long induced coma to find the fingers on one of his hands had been amputated.

He is now asking for help from fans to pay for a life-changing surgery to give him a hand transplant.

Mr Stobbie is a founding member of prog-rock band Pallas.

‘Elephant skin’

Mr Stobbie first realised something was wrong last July when the skin above his elbow changed into something he describes as “elephant skin”.

He first discovered a thin line of blood, and thought nothing of it.

Two days later the line was still “wet” so he put a plaster over it.

A few days the line remained, so he contacted his GP.

But then, he became very unwell and called 101, and an ambulance was called.

While waiting for the ambulance, he became seriously unwell and called 999 and asked for an ambulance himself.

By the time paramedics arrived, he had lost the use of the left side of his body.

The musician said: “As I was lying there in the ambulance, my left hand was like something out of an alien movie. It started getting bigger and it turned purple.

“The skin started moving really fast as though there were little aliens underneath it.”

Doctors asked him for the details of his next of kin before putting him in a coma. His wife Anna and son Michael, who was eight at the time, were in Sweden.

Necrotizing fasciitis

Two months later Mr Stobbie was brought out of the coma. He found all the fingers on his left hand had been amputated.

“There wasn’t any blood getting to and from my heart,” he explained. “So, they gave me adrenaline. It’s the stuff you get when you’re playing on stage with a band, your body uses it in a scary situation.

“It takes all the blood from your fingers and toes, and zooms it into your heart. It saved my life, of course, but my left hand just went totally black.”

While in the hospital, he was put on a heart machine and received kidney dialysis.

Eventually, he was given emergency surgery for a tracheostomy to help with his breathing.

Doctors explained he had contracted necrotizing fasciitis, an aggressive infection also known as the “flesh-eating disease”.

The condition is very rare and can be caused by bacteria in an open wound.

He had to have skin grafts from his legs and back, which Mr Stobbie said left him in agonising pain. He has had 40 operations so far – with more planned to save his remaining fingers and toes.

Musical talents helping recovery

While Mr Stobbie returned home in November, he still gets his wounds dressed every second day.

“Who would have thought from one tiny crack in the skin all of this could happen?” he said.

The musician has played the piano since he was 10 and later learned the clarinet.

As a schoolboy, he played in the woodwind section alongside pop icon Annie Lennox – who played the flute – in Aberdeen Schools Orchestra.

He later founded the progressive rock band Pallas.

Mr Stobbie left Aberdeen in the 1980s to work as a music composer. Over a successful career he has worked with the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Simon Cowell.

He also worked alongside Fiona Kennedy when she performed at the first, and only, show at Balmoral Castle for the late Queen Elizabeth’s 80th birthday.

Since leaving the hospital, Mr Stobbie has thrown himself back into work and says he has plenty of things to look forward to, striving to remain positive and refusing to give up.

“You have to have the right, positive attitude really,” he said. “There’s still too much to be done.”

He has adapted quickly to only using his right hand, believing his years of playing instruments helped develop his dexterity.

Now, the 65-year-old has taught himself to tie his shoelaces using only one hand and can clip his own fingernails – which he says always surprises people and has amazed doctors.

Transplant surgery

Although he is still working as a writer and composer – and can remarkably still play some piano using only his right hand – he is no longer able to perform.

He is hoping to undergo groundbreaking surgery in Vienna to get a hand transplant, which could allow him to play the piano again.

Jeff Green, a US composer and guitarist, and friend of Mr Stobbie’s, set up a GoFundMe page to help raise the £120,000 needed for the surgery.

Mr Stobbie said: “Thanks to the GoFundMe, one of the most amazing things is, the amount of people that have come back into my life that I haven’t seen for years. It’s phenomenal and so touching.”

The fundraiser has raised £10,550.

His former bandmates from Pallas have also compiled an album called Compendium for fans to download, with funds going toward his medical needs.