My first time in the ER!

My First Trip to the Emergency Room

It was a typical sunny afternoon. I was only eight years old at the time. I was on the bus heading home from a long day of school. Next to me was Jose, a boy my mother used to care of, and sitting across from us was my older sister Alexes. Finally, after an entire hour ride on the bus we arrive at our destination. Since I wanted to be the first one off the bus, I slightly pushed Jose out of my way.

 Even though Jose was our neighbor’s son, he was always like a brother to me. Jose was seven years old, but as far as I could remember my mother would take care of him since he was a baby. Although Jose was not my parent’s son, my parents loved him as if he was part of the family. I was always jealous of Jose since I wanted to be my parent’s center of attention. Every day after school my mother always had our dinner ready. I can still remember walking inside my mother’s house and the smell of homemade chicken stew came rushing to my nose, for dessert my mother had a small Zip-lock bag full of grapes for each one of us.

 I can still remember my sister not wanting her grapes so I ate her portion plus mine, on the other hand Jose was very happy to eat his grapes. He sat down on the couch and began to eat his grapes, he only had three grapes and shortly after he fell asleep. Without thinking twice, I ran to the couch and ate his portion of grapes.

As soon as I woke up the following morning, I had a tremendous stomach ache. It was so painful I could hardly even walk. I remember my parents did not believe me and they send me off to school. That evening when I got home from school I did not eat anything. My stomach pain had just become much worse and walking had become much more difficult for me. In order for me to be able to walk I had to hold on very tightly to my stomach and I walked with a hunch. Luckily for me it was Friday and I knew I did not have to attend school the following day. The next morning I was not able to walk at all, not even a few steps. I remember climbing off my bed crying and crawling to my parent’s room for help. I had never felt something so painful and horrible in my entire life. My parents finally realized that I was lying. My father picked me up off the floor and carried me out to the truck. He had a serious look on his face and I knew he was extremely worried for me. My mother got pink rose cheeks, the ones she usually gets when she’s afraid, she immediately ran to the truck holding on to my sister’s hand and they rushed me out to the emergency room.

My ride to the Hospital was the longest one ever. I was crying and my pain would just worsen by the minute. Not only was I afraid I knew that we were all afraid of what was going on. My heartbeat was so fast that I felt as if I had just run a couple miles. I can hear my parent’s ague back and forth about what was going on with me, and my sister was hugging me very tightly in the backseat.

 Finally we arrive at the Emergency room we waiting about thirty minutes until they finally called us in. As soon as they took me inside a room I felt a little safer knowing that there were many Doctors there to help. Even though we had not seen a doctor yet, I knew my parents felt relief of being at the hospital as well. It was my first time being at a hospital, I can still remember the smell of medicine and the noises in the background of loud machines. Since the hospital was so cold inside, I had chills all over my body. After a couple minutes of waiting a man in a white coat comes in and introduces himself as Dr. Lanter. My mother didn’t even let him speak when she started telling him in Spanish what was going on with me. He then examined me and then left the room. He had left all of us in suspense we didn’t know why he left the room. He came back in a couple minutes with a nurse named Amanda she then translated for Dr. Lanter and my parent’s. She told us that Dr. Lantern had diagnosed me with an appendix rupture and I had to go into emergency surgery.

Once they were preparing everything for surgery I was very afraid. I had no clue what an appendix was or why it had ruptured. I knew my parents were worried just by the look on their face.

Amanda came back about an hour later telling us that my room was ready for surgery. I then told her if she could help into the restroom since I could not walk. She assisted me into the restroom and I sat there patiently with an even worse horrible stomach ache. My stomach then started to growl very loudly and it followed with explosive diarrhea. I thought that it was normal since I was nervous about undergoing emergency surgery. The nurse got very worried and rushed to call Dr. Lanter into the room. Dr. Lanter examined me after going to the rest room. I then noticed that my pain was slowly going away and I felt much better. After he examined my stool he realized that my appendix had not ruptured, in reality it was just grape skin that had caused a blockage in my stomach from consuming too many grapes. Shortly after my surgery got called off and I was able to go home.

I then realized that I should not be eating other people’s food without their permission and I also learned to share my food. When I got home that night I immediately called Jose and apologized for eating his grapes.