When I was 10 years old, I had emergency surgery that changed my life forever. Prior to this surgery, I had very few health problems. I had asthma, which was managed well, and on occasion I caught a stomach bug or a cold. Summer was starting to wind down and I was getting ready to start sixth grade. One day, I woke up with excruciating pain in my lower abdomen around 4 in the morning. My parents came running into my room trying to figure out what was wrong with me. My dad carried me to the couch in the living room while my mom, who is a nurse, called her mother who was a nurse practitioner at the time, trying to figure out what could be wrong. Around 8 that morning, my mother took me to the emergency room where they drew blood to rule out different things. All of my blood work came back normal, and they sent me on my way, telling my mom I was probably getting my period and to just give me Tylenol as needed. I was 10 years old and weighed between 55-60 pounds. My mom thought there was no way it could be that, but took me home to see if the pain would pass.

As that day went on, I was still in a lot of pain and started to have a low-grade fever. I hardly slept that night as I was still in a lot of pain. The next morning I woke up to the same agonizing pain and a sour stomach. Shortly after waking up, my head was in the toilet. I spent a majority of that day puking. My fever spiked and I couldn’t keep any food down. Around 6 that evening, I couldn’t handle the pain anymore, I was puking every half hour and I couldn’t stand up due to the pain. My parents brought me back to the emergency room and this time my dad had to carry me in as I screamed and cried “I’M GOING TO DIEEEEE,” (side note: I probably scared everyone in that waiting room shitless now that I think about it.) They got me into a room quickly, drew blood, and got a CT scan of my abdomen. I must’ve been drugged up at this point because all I remember is getting the CT scan and them coming back at 11:30pm to tell me I was going into surgery to get my appendix out.

The rest of that night is a blur until I woke up around 3am, sat straight up in bed, and quickly remembered that I got my appendix out when I got a shooting pain through my entire abdomen. I spent a few days at the hospital recovering and was overjoyed when I finally got to go home. The first night I was back at home, I woke up around midnight and puked. I thought it was strange but I just went back to bed. I woke up again around 12:30am and puked again. This continued every half hour until 3 in the morning when my mom and I went back to the ER. After more blood work, it turns out that my appendix started to rupture in the middle of surgery, and bacteria had gotten into my intestines and caused and infection, which was why I was vomiting again. I had to stay at the hospital for a few more days and ended up missing most of my family vacation that year.

Shortly after all of this occurred, I realized that I wanted to work in the medical field. Even though I had a horrific experience at the hospital, I LOVED the hospital. I loved how the different health care professionals worked together as a team, and that everyone’s goal was to do everything in their power to help people get better. Although at the time that situation was awful, I wouldn’t change any bit of it because it helped me realize what I want to do for the rest of my life.