To you, this may be a story. To me, this was my life.

Today, I am sharing it.

"No, I'm not eating," I told my dad after a super hard practice. My stomach hurts so bad, I'm going straight to bed. He laughed and said, "A swimmer isn't going to eat after practice? Yeah right." And yet that's what I did, watching my favorite TV show at the time and tried to get comfy for bed.

I could barely finish the episode, my stomach hurt so bad. I went to my parents' room, hoping to get some relief. It didn't come. My mom said I must have the flu or some kind of virus and told me to climb into bed.

A couple hours later I began to throw up. Confirmed: the flu. The next couple days became more miserable. I started having problems walking normally, and I couldn't eat or drink. I was miserable. At day 4 of this, my mom wanted me to get some fluids and checked out by our doctor.

A horrible car ride later, I ended up in a doctor's office where I was examined. The doctor told me to relax and try to not tense my stomach. When I explained that doing anything with my stomach was so painful, she ordered a CAT scan on top of the fluids.

I was moved over to the ER where the fluids and tests would commence. I was fading in and out of consciousness, trying to sleep off the pain,when my mom came in my room after updating family members and goes, "Oh my gosh, there is this poor girl who has to be rushed to the hospital in Baton Rouge. Good thing that isn't us!"

A couple minutes later, we realized I was that girl being rushed to the children's hospital for an emergency surgery. Turns out I had a 10 millimeter abscess in my stomach, and the doctors didn't know what the source of the problem was. The only way to fix it was through a exploratory surgery.

Fast forwarding past a horrible ambulance ride where we hit every bump on the bridge, I arrived at the hospital and began meeting all the doctors, anesthesiologists, and residents that would be a part of my surgery.

The surgery went as well as it could have. The source of the problem was an abscessed appendix, with now 7 abscesses walled-off in my abdomen. My appendix was also wrapped around my ovary, and at the time it had 80% function.

That night, I didn't want to bother the nurses from their already busy schedules, so I didn't tell them I needed pain meds. For 12 hours after my first surgery, I went without pain meds, which caused a huge spike in my temperature.

The medicine I was on brought no improvement to my condition. Doctors came to me two days after my surgery. They told me my white blood cell count was so high I would be septic within the day if it kept going at that rate, and I needed an immediate procedure.

This procedure included me laying on a CAT scan for 2 hours or more where they would insert a drain through my buttcheek to the front of my abdomen in hopes of draining one of the abscesses. It was only right before the procedure that they told me that had no anesthesia available, and if I wanted to do the procedure today, I would have to do it without being put under.

Knowing the risk of going septic, I did the procedure that day to get it over with. Meanwhile, the children's hospital I was staying at did a super cool thing where local athletes would come to visit the children. By the time I got out, I met LSU's Men's Tennis Team, Women's Swimming, and Diving as well as the Men's Baseball Team.

Meeting all of these athletes only made me want to be able to swim more, but where I was at that moment showed no sign of getting in the water anytime soon. Then-teammates brought me all kinds of great treats to keep me occupied, like journals and treats.

At this point in time, it had been a little over a week in the hospital. The drain that was inserted stopped doing its job and was removed. They informed me that my vitals were worsening again, and I would need another surgery.

This surgery was specifically to clean out and hopefully get rid of all the abscesses once and for all. Because of all the trouble I was having with IV lines, they inserted an essential port so I wouldn't need to be stuck with needles constantly anymore.

The second surgery was a success and I was on my way home within the next couple days. I thought, "Yes, I'll be back in the water within the week!"

I was so wrong. I wasn't home for more than 12 hours before I was already returning to the hospital because I threw up again. Another IV and CAT scan later, I had two abscesses remaining in my abdomen. I was readmitted and had another procedure scheduled for the next day, where I would have the remaining abscesses removed and a PICC line inserted.

The procedure was successful. I would receive the strongest antibiotics for the next six weeks minimum through the PICC line, in hopes of killing the remaining abscess and kill anything that would reform. However, the PICC line meant I still couldn't swim.

For a long time I was very weak, and couldn't do much. But I still had big goals for the season I still planned to accomplish.

Two weeks out of the hospital, I began doing dryland training at our swim facility, trying to regain some strength. I continued working up my strength every week.

It came time for my check up to see if I would have the PICC line removed. The results came back with 80% left and with my track record, they decided to leave it for another two weeks. After the two weeks were complete, it was removed.

On that day, I jumped in the water for a 30-minute practice. At the time I saw nothing wrong with this idea. However, now I see it may not have been my best idea--but definitely not my worst, either. I slowly began working back up to a normal practice (2 hours and 15 minutes, not including drylands).

This was a slow process, and more importantly, I was seeing very slow progress towards my goals, which would not do. So I met with my coach to see what I could do in order to achieve my ambitious goals. As most coaches would, I was advised to just worry about getting my strength back and focus on those goals next season.

I couldn't wait a year, so I moved on to a person who could help me. It was a mom on the team who also coached and participated in Master's Swimming herself. I asked her the same question I asked my coach, and she gave me times to focus on during practice.

With two months until states, I had very little time to reach my goals. But I did not see this as a problem. Two months of training passed and the state meet arrived. I achieved every goal I had set by a whole second! My mom cried, while I saw this as normal. I wasn't sure why everyone was so surprised--I just did what I had always done.

Goals and swimming were so simple. It was so easy to set a goal and find steps to achieve it. I thought this chapter of sickness in my life was the end, and now I was unstoppable in the water.