Appendix rupture recovery update wAmputee Cyclist Aaron Smith of Gainesville TX

Añadido: 2026-05-26

[00:00:01]Hi there, ladies and gentlemen. Aaron Smith, the amputee cyclist.

[00:00:05]And today, I'm still recovering from my surgery for my appendix rupture. And so, I want to give you all an update on that because I know more. And so, okay, here we go. So, today the doctor came in and he told me that I when he went in to operate on my appendix, it was one of the worst ruptured appendix cases he'd ever seen in his career. And so, that caught my attention because this is what he does for a living. He hasn't seen many this bad.

[00:00:35]And so, that's not good. That's not good that it ruptured or that it it was in that such bad shape when he found it. And so, he wanted to know about the pain that I had felt.

[00:00:49]And I told him there wasn't you know, it wasn't pain. And I wasn't a lot of pain.

[00:00:52]I didn't even know when it ruptured.

[00:00:54]There was just discomfort. And so, he was like, "Well, I'm impressed." And well, you know, I'm not trying to impress anybody because I I want to listen to any pain that I feel so that I can know what's going on in my body and respond to that. So, I'm upset that if I have a high enough pain tolerance to mask something like that that almost killed me that that I almost died from, that's upsetting to me. But, what happened was that, you know, he went in on Friday and did the surgery and he found that the appendix it was he used words like necrotic, gangrenous.

[00:01:32]And >> [clears throat] >> that he said my body had done a natural primitive response of basically walling off the entire area and forming this fibrous material around and and trying to absorb this this ruptured appendix and all the nastiness that was coming out of it. And so, he had to take all that out. He had to break it up.

[00:01:53]There was when he went in to remove it, it fell apart into pieces. He to pull all the pieces and all this the fibrous material, all this junk. He had to try to get it out of there and um it was a real mess. And so, after, you know, the day after, uh my GI tract shut down and I got in a dangerous, life-threatening situation where I had taken um anti-nausea medication so that I so I wouldn't throw up, but also food and, you know, everything in my GI tract couldn't move down and so it was trying to move up and I couldn't couldn't throw up and so it was forcing me to take really shallow breaths and I couldn't breathe and I took a whole assortment of heavy laxatives, which ultimately got the GI tract moving just enough to where I could breathe and that was life-saving. That that was just amazing to be able to breathe again. I felt so grateful. And then, uh I continued to I continued the fight and so right now I've got a tube coming out of my abdomen that leads to this reservoir and we just emptied it, but this reservoir has fluid that my abdomen abdomen is producing.

[00:03:16]All the organs and uh everything around that ruptured appendix was damaged and so now it's weeping and producing this fluid and right now we're down to about 250 ml a day, somewhere around there, but we need to get down to 30 ml a day before I can remove this from my abdomen, the tube that's running to my abdomen.

[00:03:41]And uh so I'm documenting nurses are documenting the fluid output, but I'm going to have to do that and, you know, over the next several days until it gets down to 30 ml.

[00:03:51]I'm on heavy heavy um antibiotics.

[00:03:54]That's what's keeping me alive because this fluid being produced is being produced because there's infectious causing events happening in my abdomen.

[00:04:06]And without without those heavy antibiotics, it's the infection is going to take over and it'll kill me real fast. And so we're staying on top of that and I'm I'm going to try to stay on IV antibiotics instead of oral antibiotics just because they are more potent and effective. And so it's looking like I may get discharged tomorrow, but it's been a real a real roller coaster that's gone pretty far down and I'm just very lucky to be alive and thankful to be alive. And man, I just can't believe I just was so taken aback when he said this is was one of the worst appendix rupture cases that he had ever seen because I know how deadly it is. I've I've looked on the line, you know, I've done the research and and appendix ruptures boy, they they can really head south fast. And so I'm I'm just real blessed that that didn't happen. So it's you know, there's a lot of damage inside of my abdomen and it's going to take some time to heal, but he he says it will heal. You know, I just got to keep fighting. It will heal and I'll be back again, you know, and darn near 100% if not 100%, but it's it's just going to take time, but we're in the fight and we've we've gone over over the hump, you know, and so it's good. It's good news. All right, well, y'all have a great rest of your day. Bye-bye.