1 week Ago By gneese
The constant flux of professional wrestling keeps lifelong fan Evan Makel hooked. “You just kind of escape into it,” he said. “There’s new stuff happening every week, new stars.
It’s always changing. It’s never staying the same.” His own dramatic journey — a worsening liver disease, a successful transplant, and an inspiring recovery — will take on a new step later this month as he gets to meet some of his heroes.
Evan, a ninth grade student at Waynesburg Central High School, is among 25 kids who will attend WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas later this month through a team-up between Make-A-Wish and Fanatics. When Evan was 5, he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which causes the inflammation of the digestive tract. As doctors did more testing, they learned he had a rarer and more serious condition: primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), an incurable liver disease where scar tissue builds up and blocks off the bile ducts, eventually leading to liver failure.
Being in and out of hospitals became a routine fact of life for Evan early on. And he learned how to make the best of it. “Whenever you’re in the hospital, you see people in worse situations than you, so it’s very humbling,” he said.
In a sense, he was fortunate, said his mother, Olivia Makel. Most people who have the disease don’t find out until they’re in their teens or early twenties, when the disease is farther along. “We were lucky in the fact that we knew he had it, could watch the progression of it,” she said.
Around Thanksgiving 2023, things worsened. He got an infection, and his legs began to fail. In February, he was listed for a transplant.
Again, he was luckier than some. His AB-positive blood type lets him receive blood from anyone, which was helpful in finding a match. In May, he got the call.
At first, he was scheduled for a living donor. Then the family got a midnight call: another match from a deceased donor, whose organs might not get used without quick action. The quick pace was humbling, Olivia said.
They’d been on the transplant floor of UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, where everyone had either had a transplant or was waiting for one. “It almost causes you to feel some guilt because it happened so quickly for us, and we became close with families there who were there for a long time,” Olivia said. “Some of them, their kids are very ill, and not sure when they’re going to get a transplant and have been in the hospital for months longer.
” While he was in the hospital for his liver transplant, nurses let him know he qualified for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Once he was feeling better, the family applied. They granted his wish.
A diehard John Cena fan, Evan wanted to go to Wrestlemania 41, where Cena will compete in what he’s declared to be his final match. He became a fan watching his first wrestling match at his cousin’s house — Cena versus Daniel Bryan. Evan gravitated to Cena simply because “he’s the guy.
” Since kindergarten age, he’s played the video games, collected thousands of wrestling action figures, and watched with his family. He’s regularly watched with his dad, and managed to make his sister a fan. After some disenchantment with the empty warehouse matches of the COVID era, he got a renewed passion for wrestling around 2023.
Beyond Cena, his faves include Mick Foley, the Dudley Boyz, and his current top wrestler Jacob Fatu. They fit into his love of extreme wrestling and hardcore matches. “I also just like people who are different, people who are unique, who don’t fit the regular mode of what a wrestler should be,” he said.
“Most of those guys are that.” Evan’s drawn on his own power for perseverance. He got out of the hospital a week after his surgery, though not without complications.
He was put on pain meds, and he intended to power through it. Then, in a new complication, his stomach started leaking fat from his lymphatic system. It set off another round of treatments, where doctors would tell him he was allowed to eat, then restricting him again when the leak returned.
Evan was put on a liquid diet for two weeks, which he called “the worst thing in my life.” “That was pretty rough,” he said. “I like food too much.
Even the hospital food looked good.” While he still has to wear a brace for the time being, his stomach has now mostly healed. He has another surgery this summer for a muscle that couldn’t be closed during his original stay because he’d swelled too much.
Since his transplant, his skin, once yellowed, has returned to a regular tone, Evan said. And he’s grown three-and-a-half inches and gained 30 pounds. “I don’t think we realized how sick he was until he had the surgery,” Olivia said.
The family leaves Waynesburg April 16 and comes back five days later. The day after they leave, Evan will get VIP seating, gifts and more surprises of the first day of the WWE World fan festival. They still don’t know who they might get to meet, or where they’ll sit in the arena for the two-day WrestleMania event.
But with even nosebleed seats going for $1,000, any version of the trip will be beyond what they would have done for themselves. “I’m really excited for it,” he said. “I don’t know what all we’re going to be doing, but I’m sure it will be good.
” As his health improves, Evan would like to begin training to do wrestling himself. For now, he’s looking forward to his first time meeting a wrestler, and a chance to travel; he’s never been further than Florida. “I think that would be pretty awesome to see a completely different world than what a small town is,” he said.
With a hospital stay no longer an imminent possibility, the family is looking forward to its first extended vacation in years. “We’re just happy to be going and we’re happy the only things we get to do are WrestleMania and have some family time,” Olivia said..
