Have you ever been in the emergency room? If you have, did you ever stop and look around at the other people? Just imagine walking into a room full of people who are feeling some type of pain. Not just physical pain but emotional pain. Well if you looked in the middle of the room you would find me there.

A girl whose face is swollen to the point where you don’t recognize her. My throat felt like it was closing little by little every minute. Every time that it would close more I would run out of air. I guess I made it harder for myself because my crying didn’t help, it just made me feel more out of breath.

The lady at the front desk of the hospital had us wait for a while. It wasn’t long till they called my name. As I got up I could feel the itchiness on my body and how swollen it was. They took measurements. My weight, blood pressure and asked me a few questions. The nurse seemed calm but my family did not.

I could tell my mom and dad were worried by the look on her face. My sister got frustrated to the point where she asked the nurse, “if it was necessary to take all the measurements”. The nurse replied with a simple “yes.” He told my family that only my mother could stay with me.

The nurse guided me towards a chair. When I sat down I looked over to a metal cart that was next to me. There was tubes and a needle. He told me that he needed to take blood out before they give me any medicine. As he said that my heart dropped. The last time I got my blood taken out went bad. My eyes rolled back and I fainted because of the lack of blood I had.

There I was about to get my blood taken out again. I was nervous so the nurse just told me to look at my mom and breathe. I didn’t feel a thing but i did feel dizzy. All I remember is the nurse saying “okay all done”. My world went black for a while. I had a dream of me being at home with my family. They all looked so happy but as I came back to my senses I knew it was a dream.

I opened my eyes and the first thing i saw was my mother’s face. The expression on her face is something I could never forget. The way she looked at me as if it was the last time she was going to see me. Once I woke up, my mom made a sigh of relief. Her eyes were watery like she wanted to cry but she was trying not to.

The nurse put me and my mom in a room. He put a IV on my arm. For those of you who don’t know a IV delivers liquid medicine directly into your vein. He also gave me oxygen therapy. I started to feel better. I could breathe but I still had a bad feeling in my heart. What time was it? Where’s the rest of my family? All those thoughts kept me up.

Sooner or later I ended up falling asleep. When I opened my eyes again my dad was next to my mom. They both looked tired but I bet being tired was the last thing on their mind. I ended up leaving the hospital at 4 a.m. My family drove back to my aunties house because that’s where we were staying for our vacation.

It’s crazy to think that minutes before everything happened at the hospital I was at a party in New Mexico. It was my cousins big 15 birthday party or as we like to call it a quinceanera. I was attending as one of her companions. One minute I was dancing. Then I drank some multi-fruit cider to give the birthday girl a toast. The last thing I remember was being in the bathroom not being able to breathe.

I wish that when I think about that night I remember the party. Instead all I can remember was going to the hospital at the end of the night. Even though the IV on my arm was gone I still felt it. I felt many things that night, physical and emotional pain from seeing my family so worried about me. The next day we had to leave back to Kansas because I had school. Funny how things work, you would normally think the last day of your summer vacation would be getting school supplies.