The physical side of my story

The physical side of my story
Name: Aaron Rouselle
Pronouns: He/him
Instagram: Arstrong22

On Sept 1st I had surgery for penile cancer, ok I’m a little worried. Like everything else I come out on top and am currently cancer free. I spent the next two weeks at home recovering and ready to get back to my normal daily routines. Then the rug is yanked out from under me.

​September 14th after a weekend of not eating and a fever I go to the ER and after that I remember nothing until sometime in October. From what I am told things went from bad to worse fast. I spent 2 days at one hospital with the shakes and a racing heart, then was transferred to a better hospital in Baltimore where my liver and kidneys began to fail. I didn’t have days to wait for a new liver I had hours.

By the grace of god after 8 hours on the liver transplant list and being kept alive by machines running all of my major organs for me (one of which was a mars machine for my liver and there is only 5 of those in the country) they found me a liver. From someone who passed hours ago on the same floor I was on. It was nothing short of a miracle and I hope someday I get the chance to meet the family of the person who lost their life, but saved mine and many others through being a donor.

As the doctors finished surgery and came to let my family know I was ok and they stressed that I was just ok. According to the doctors I was as sick as they come. So sick they debated on even doing the surgery since I recently had cancer and other health issues they weren’t sure if they should even do the transplant. But thanks to my family and my urologist they did it and I was ok.

​I spent the next few weeks recovering, figuring out my medicines and trying to get my kidneys to respond. Most doctors thought I’d be on dialysis for years. I did 3 weeks of that shit and they responded enough to try and stop the treatment.

Over the next few weeks they got a little better each day and on Nov 23rd I found out my kidney function was at 100 percent!!! Once the kidneys started coming back things started to really get positive. By November 2nd I was discharged from the hospital without having to attend any rehab facility, I was going home!!! For the first time in 47 days.

From 2017 up into my second transplant in this year I never went a month without being admitted into the hospital for different infections, developed type 1 diabetes, had shingles which has costs me the use of my left foot.

I spent 2018-2020 sleeping and sick unable to play with kids or leave the house without my body shutting down the next day.

The hardest part of it all was being unable to be the active parent I used to be and being bed bound for so long.


Leave a comment

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.