FOR HAMPSHIRE student Yvette James A-level results day was doubly nerve-racking.

For not only was her educational future in the balance but she was also due to undergo a kidney operation.

At 9am she was waiting at the doors of Itchen College to be told her A-level grades before rushing off to ensure she made the hospital in time for her operation.

"When the letter came through with my operation date I realised it was the same day as my results were due.

"Everyone else had arranged to get together and open their results and go to the pub afterwards but I have missed out on all that," said Yvette, 18.

"I went into college once I had heard the date of my operation to speak to my tutor and see if I could pick them up early.

"Normally you have about 400 or 500 people around you screaming, crying or bouncing with joy when you open your results but I had none of that. I was on my own with just my tutor and my mum.

"But my results were brilliant, I couldn't have hoped for anything better."

Yvette, of Old Bridge House Road, Bursledon, gained an A grade in geography, a B in business studies and a C in geology and will now be on her way to study a geography degree at University College, London, in the autumn.

The operation was a follow-up procedure to a major operation she had six weeks ago.

Yvette was diagnosed with a blockage in a tube in her kidney which left her prone to kidney infections and meant she needed to have 60 per cent of her kidney removed.

The last operation was to remove a tube that had been put in between her kidney and bladder after the major op to help it drain. She now has to wait for a scan in six weeks' time to see how everything is working.

Her tutor and geology teacher and Itchen College assistant principal Adrian Cook said he was delighted for her.

"She is smashing and she did very well. She was just so positive throughout the two years. When she came and asked to get the results early there was no problem."

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.