Every day, the pain in my leg seemed to be twice as bad as the day before. The plan was to wait it out until the day of my surgery, but I didn’t know if that would be possible anymore.

Thursday night, the night before my mom would drive me to Madison for the operation, I went to bed in excruciating pain. Any small movement caused a pain that shot through my body like a bullet. I was barely even able to fall asleep.

The plan was to go to school on Friday. After all, I did have a math test and a chemistry lab in the morning that I couldn’t miss. It would set me too far back.

Though I did sleep for a few hours that night, I have never felt more exhausted than I did when I woke up at 2 in the morning. It was nearly impossible to find a comfortable enough position to sleep in and every time I adjusted myself in an attempt to get more comfortable, it hurt so bad that tears stung my eyes.

An hour had passed. I was still laying in bed, desperately trying to fall back asleep because I knew if I couldn’t I would have to get up.

Another hour went by. It was 4 in the morning and I was sick of waiting. I shifted my leg to the side and my entire body began to ache again. I didn’t care anymore. I would have to get creative to be able to get out of my bed, because sitting wasn’t an option anymore.

I shifted my weight onto my arms and lifted myself out of my bed with minimal leg movements, standing myself up. I began to take my first step forward towards my parents room across the house. Clinging to my bookshelves, I pushed forward because it was my only option at this point.

For the next 30 minutes, I waddled so painfully slowly across the house that it was light out by the time I made it to their bedroom door. Finally, I cracked it open.

“Mom? Dad?” my voice cracked. “I can’t sleep, it hurts so bad.”

My nose stung with tears. Suddenly, I was a little girl again waking up my parents in the middle of the night because I had a nightmare. My soft cries quickly turned into loud, uncontrollable sobbing as my parents rushed to my side.

My dad carried me into the kitchen as my mom made a call to the hospital in Madison where I would have had my surgery later the same day.

“You’re sure you can’t wait until later today?” my mom pleaded with me, but I shook my head. There was no way I could go all day like this.

Finally, my mom decided to drive me all the way to Madison in hopes that they could ease my suffering while I waited for my surgery.

Because I was not able to sit down, holding myself up was my only option. So during the hour-long car ride, my hands gripped the edges of the passenger seat and my legs held me up from below.

Any little bump on the road was agonizing, and I could feel everything.

I watched the clock the whole ride there, counting down the minutes until we would arrive. 45 minutes, 30 minutes, 25, 23, 17, 14, 13, 12, 10, 7, 3, 1–that hour was the longest hour of my life. 

My mom pulled into the parking lot.

“Stay here.”

She got out, walked through the front door of the emergency room, and walked out of sight. I was left in the car with nothing but the silence that was stinging my ears.

I wanted to let out the most blood curdling, gut wrenching scream I could possibly create with my shot vocal cords, but I resisted.

Instead, I sat in the car praying that my mom would walk back out to me and take me inside and hold me and tell me I’d be okay and do all of the things that moms do to make their daughters’ pain disappear forever.