NEW ORLEANS — Thirteen days in the hospital, seven of them spent in ICU.

He almost didn’t make it to New Orleans. He almost didn’t make it, period.

But after surviving a brush with death earlier this season, and after being told earlier this week he can never play football again, UL defensive end Aaron Thibodeaux is here with his Ragin’ Cajun teammates as they prepare for Saturday night’s New Orleans Bowl against San Diego State.

"It means the world to me," he said, "being able to be with the team."

A redshirt freshman, Thibodeaux was injured in the Cajuns’ second game of 2011 — a September victory at Kent State.

Before long, he found himself in intensive care — fighting, little did he know then, for his life.

"I found out the day before I got out of the hospital they told my parents they didn’t know if I was gonna make it," Eric and Lori Thibodeaux’s son said. "So for me to be able to get through that "» "

The 6-foot-3, 235-pound body stands still.

But the voice hesitates, fighting not to break.

And the mind?

It turns elsewhere, as teammates nearby practice in the Superdome for UL’s first bowl game in 41 years.

"Ninety percent of the team came and saw me while I was in the hospital," Thibodeaux said.

And now he’s able to watch them.

"I was really, really proud he was able to that," Cajuns coach Mark Hudspeth said, "because he worked awfully hard this offseason too, so at least he gets to enjoy a little bit of the bowl experience."

Yet no one may soak it in more than Thibodeaux himself, and it’s all because of the company.

"Me seeing how much the team cares for me — it’s really opened my eyes," he said, "and it’s really touching, to be honest."

Not just touching, though.

Perhaps even life-saving.

In medical terms

The enemy is MRSA.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, to be precise.

According to PubMed Health, a service of the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the U.S. National Library of Medicine, it’s a strain of staph bacteria that doesn’t respond to some antibiotics commonly used to treat staph infections.

Thibodeaux picked up MRSA — linked, according to a New England Journal of Medicine study, to abrasions caused by artificial turf — in his elbow prior to the start of the season.

He finished the meds he was given to treat it, and figured all was good.

But then came the aforementioned play at Kent State, a helmet-to-helmet collision that caused a concussion, hurt Thibodeaux’s back and evidently reawakened the dormant MRSA.

The medical drama that unfolded, in a nutshell:

"It reactivated it "» in my body, and it got into my bloodsteam, and went to my heart," Thibodeaux said. "My heart shot it out, and that’s when it went to all of my organs and formed (a) cyst in my spinal canal."

Just like that, his season was done.

That alone, Thibodeaux, "killed me."

Well, almost.

"Between everybody coming to see me and telling me to keep my head up and praying for me — no doubt in my mind, that’s what got me through it," Thibodeaux said. "Without all that, I probably wouldn’t have made it."

Coping with reality

Thibodeaux did survive, thanks not only to supportive friends, family and teammates, but also caring doctors and personal perseverance.

Still, knowing that the season was lost hurt.

He didn’t play as a true freshman in 2010. This year was supposed to be different.

Yet it was over, barely after it began.

Two games played — one at Oklahoma State, one at Kent State — and one tackle made.

Thibodeaux, treated in Lafayette, returned to his parents’ house in Monroe, where he was both a tight end and two-time All-District defensive lineman at St. Frederick Catholic High.

The business marketing major dropped all of his UL classes but one, which he completed at home.

And as he recovered, Thibodeaux hoped.

Hoped his health would soon return to normal. Hoped his degree pursuit would soon be back on track. Hoped he’d soon be playing football again.

His neurologist, however, still hasn’t cleared him. Then came the visit last Monday to the specialist overseeing his case — the one who delivered news he simply didn’t want to hear.

"I go in and get hurt the second game — and they tell me that my football career is over," Thibodeaux said.

"I can never play again. A life dream you have is to play college football, and then you get chance, and two games later you’re done."

He still can’t believe it.

Still doesn’t want to buy it, either.

So Thibodeaux, who has been cleared for light workouts in the weight room, plans to seek a second opinion from a concussion expert in Shreveport. And after at least six months have passed, he’ll visit again with the specialist who’s been treating him, hoping to learn something different.

But she, he said, isn’t hopeful at all.

"They said it (the MRSA) could be hiding in my bones," Thibodeaux said, "and if I get hit again it could come back worse than what it was."

The near future

In the meantime, Thibodeaux plans to return to UL next semester.

He’ll pick up the classes he dropped, and perhaps another one or two.

He’ll also stay with, or at least around, the team — his team, the one for which it seems he’ll never again play.

"I’m gonna do something," Thibodeaux said.

"I don’t know what it is yet, but definitely. I think that’s what’s gonna save me from getting so down, is I’ll still be able to be around everybody."

Seeing teammates when he was hospitalized, after all, saved him then.

Being around them now — something he didn’t know what he was going to do until one day before he traveled with the Cajuns from Lafayette to New Orleans — sure has to help.

"They told me I couldn’t ever play again on Monday — and they told I could come down here on Monday too," Thibodeaux said. "I was real low, so it kind of brought my morale up a little bit.’

Athletic Network Footnote:
click here for photo gallery of Zoo visit by UL Football Team.

click here for photo gallery of UL Football Practice Thursday.