It started after Thanksgiving, and I am in college so I had just gotten back to school. I felt nauseous and sick to my stomach. I stayed that way for a few days thinking it would just be acid reflux. Then it got worse and I started getting sicker and realized it was more likely a stomach bug. I decided at that point that I would wait it out and see what happened in a few more days.

I was eating chicken noodle soup and drinking apple juice and water. I read online that those are the best things to eat/drink when feeling sick to your stomach. Nothing was helping so I decided to go to the student health center on campus and see what they said. They took some tests and wrote It off as acid reflux and gave me some over-the-counter Pepcid. I took that for one day and it didn't help.

The next morning the symptoms got worse. I had some excruciating pain in my right side and lower back. Knowing that endometriosis runs in my family and that my dad had his appendix out and that's the area where I was hurting, I decided to go to the Emergency Room.

I called my mom who lives in Charlotte and told her, and she immediately dropped what she was doing and told her boss that I was going to the ER and she needed to leave. He let her leave and said, "I hope she gets better." So my mom started her 4 hour-long trek to Greenville. As she was driving, I was in pain at the hospital having all kinds of tests run.

Finally, my mom got there and just knowing that made me feel better. There's nothing like having your mom there when you're sick. Somehow they know exactly what you need to hear. We waited and waited for results. It was so scary, so I am so glad that my mom was able to get there. They were running all kinds of tests and getting clean results.

Finally, they took a CT scan and figured out I had a kidney stone. This was my first time getting one. It's scary because I had no idea what was going on in my body and causing me so much pain out of nowhere, so I was very glad to finally get a result. After being released, I was able to go back to Charlotte with my mom and recover since I had no exams that week. (Thank goodness for 2 weeks of exams and for the university for stretching them out).

I am better and recovering nicely, but it is very scary to go through that without your family being close, and I am so lucky that my mom was able to come and be by my side. I hope you don't have to go through this but if you do, stay strong and keep asking for results. Make the hospital staff take you seriously even though you are barely an adult. Also if you have a feeling that your student health center is wrong, go to the hospital. It will cost more but you will get the answers you need.