Meet Aaron or as many of you may know him as AaronMan 💪 he is one of our Inspiring ROHHAD warriors and he himself has written the blog below for you all to read, (well he told mum what he wanted to say and then watched carefully as she typed it for him making sure she never changed anything !!🤣🙈) this is Aarons #RareReality in his own words please #ShowYouCare by sharing his rare disease story.

"Hi my name is Aaron Hunter and I have a very rare disease called ROHHAD syndrome. I wanted to write my own blog for Rare Disease Day so you can understand a little what it is like to live with ROHHAD and I really want to raise awareness and funds to help find a cure because I don't want anymore of my friends with rohhad to die and I don't really want to die either but because I have rohhad I might not live for very long.

Sometimes my life is really hard because of rohhad and I have to go to hospital a lot and sometimes I really hate being there other times it's not too bad like when I go to clinic it can be okay just chatting to the doctors or getting some bloods or tests but other times it is so hard like when I had my surgeries, it was so painful. I have lots of doctors and some nurses and my surgeon too

Dr shaikh he is my endocrinologist
Dr Davies is my Respiratory Doctor
Dr Barclay is my gastroenterologist
Dr Noonan is my cardiologist
My eye doctor he is an Opthamology doctor
I see others doctors in London and in Glasgow for different things sometimes but I don't see them a lot. My main doctors I see a lot!

My special nurses are Heather and Jenna and Lynda they help with most of my rohhad problems and help get me things that I need and help my school know how to help me too.

My surgeon is Mr Walker he has helped do my operations.

I need to use my ventilator to breath every night because rohhad stops me breathing properly. I also use oxygen during the day but sometimes my ventilator too if I get a really sore head and i can't run anymore I miss running. I take medicines every day and one is a injection in my leg I also need my bair hugger and blankets to help keep me warm and I get checks all the time to help keep me safe like my temperature and my heart and oxygen.

Sometimes I have felt a lot of pain and sometimes I don't feel any pain but when I do it gets really hard I try to be brave and strong but it's really hard and I even thought I might just give up and go to heaven I told my mum and nurses I wanted to die but then I realise I don't really want too die because I love some things in my life and it gets better again.

Rohhad syndrome stands for rapid onset obesity hypoventilation and hypothalamic dysfunction and autonomic nervous system dysfunction. So basically that means lots of parts of my body just don't work right and my doctors don't know why yet. I feel really sad about it sometimes but most of the time I try not to think about it a lot because I don't want to be sad all the time.

If the doctors find a cure then I think when I am older I think I might like to be in the police as a job so that I can help keep people safe and fight against the criminals.
I want everyone to know that I think what matters most to my friends with rohhad is to have a good quality of life, because some of us won't live a long life until they find a cure I really think what is most important is that we get to do the things we really like to do in our lives. I hope my friends get to do good things in their lives that make them happy cause them being happy is what matters.

My big big hope and dream is for the doctors to find a cure. Please keep helping me and my friends. I really miss Luca my best friend every day he wanted to find a cure too and I really miss him he was the funniest guy I know well him and Robert and I really don't want anymore of my friends to die so please keep helping the charity so we can help the doctors find the cure for rohhad please.

Thank you so much to everybody that helps us love you all oh and I love IronMan Robert too. ps please watch The new rohhad video my friends and IronMan are in it. Thanks love Aaron xoxoxo"

#RareDiseaseDay
#ShareYourRare
#GoMadForROHHAD
#AaronsAvengers
#AaronNeedsIronMan
#RohhadAwareness
#ROHHAD