A significant experience, achievement, or risk and its personal impact

¶ … Power of Ambition

There are times in life when one realizes that things can change very quickly, and not always for the better. I have learned this lesson well while growing up because I faced many challenges, both physically, emotionally and mentally. Despite these tough times, however, I have learned to be an ambitious person and to appreciate all things in life, which is one of the most important lessons that a person can attain.

The reason I learned this lesson so early in life was due to an incident in the Fall of 2007. At the young age of 13, I woke up one morning with immense stomach pain. I knew immediately that something was wrong. I called out in acute agony for my family, for help, and remember only being rushed to the hospital. It was there I found out, through a haze, that I needed immediate surgery to remove my appendix, which had ruptured inside of me. I was so nervous, as I had never had any type of surgery before. However, I knew that it had to be done, or it would be lethal. Thus, I gathered up my courage and before I knew it, the surgery was over. However, this incident was just the beginning of my ordeal.

The morning after surgery, I woke up feeling dazed and confused. Halloween was only four days away, and I remember thinking that all I wanted was recover enough to go home. Typically, an appendectomy stay would include a two-day-stay in the hospital, but mine had ruptured, so I had to be kept for an entire week. This week was both the best and worst week of my life. The pain was excruciating. The first few days were the roughest. Each morning the nurse would come in and take my blood at five in the morning, which was quite harsh. I had no appetite and even the smell of food made me nauseous.

My daily activities during this trying time were to simply lie in bed and watch television, and the inactivity drove me crazy. The hardest task for me, at this point, was to simply get up and walk, and the pain from my stomach muscles being cut was truly debilitating. I felt incredibly helpless. I could not even get up and go to the bathroom, which was only a few feet away from my bed. Since I had no appetite, I started to lose weight and by the end of the first week I looked skeletal.

Soon, however, things started to look up. By the end of the sixth day I made true progress by walking an entire lap around the hospital floor, which was actually a great accomplishment for me. Seeing that I was improving, my doctor gave me the permission to go home after a week in the hospital. I was very excited. I had missed Halloween, but the holiday and the candy that came with it were the last things on my mind.