It was a week before I moved into college for the first time.
I was beyond nervous and dreading the day I had to move two hours away from my family. I was never the healthiest person around, but my metabolism was fast enough that I never felt the need to exercise or eat properly every day. My favorite foods consisted of Slim Jims and Hot Cheetos, and I had only gone to a gym 3 times in my entire life.
It was 4am when I awoke from my peaceful slumber in the most excruciating pain I had ever felt in my life. I thought it was period cramps, since I frequently experienced horrible pain from that, but the pain I felt in that moment was nothing like the pain I’ve felt before. I tried getting up, but the second I stood I immediately felt lightheaded and had to lay back down. I gave up on ignoring the pain and trying to sleep it off and I called my mom for help. Eventually the pain got so bad that we called 911 and I was transported to the hospital.
After a few tests and a lot of pain medicine, it was determined that I had a 2-millimeter kidney stone lodged in my urinary tract. Though this is a small stone, I am a small girl. Being only 4’9” and barely over 100 pounds, my pain tolerance is very low. I stayed in the hospital for a few hours and after I got drugged up on pain meds through an IV for the last time, my dad drove me home.
For a few days I remained weak and unbelievably tired. I waited and waited, continuously peed, just trying to get the little calcium demon to pass out of my body.
Eventually the stone passed and I was getting back to my normal self. However, at this point, only a few days remained until I had to move into college. My body had just tried to kill me a few days prior, and yet I was expected to be fine with living on my own for months on end without my family to take care of me? The only thing I knew I could do was to make sure I drank plenty of water and ate well so I didn’t develop more stones; however, this is hard to do at a school with unlimited dining hall passes (unlimited if you pay for a meal plan, that is… Which I did). There remained so many things I thought I couldn’t do on my own without my family.
After I moved in to my dorm, and my dad left to drive back home, I was suddenly hit with all the fears of the things I couldn’t do without my family. It was extremely hard at first, but over time, things did get easier. I made friends. My roommate was always there to support me. There were so many cute boys on campus to stare at. And I slowly gained the motivation to actually do my schoolwork.
So, despite having a sucky situation happen right before a major change in my life, there are positives in the story. I learned that I need to take better care of my body and actually drink more than a few sips of water a day. I learned that if I felt like I couldn’t handle doing something alone in college, I still had friends and an amazing roommate to help me out. My favorite foods may still consist of Slim Jims and Hot Cheetos, but I’ve cut down on how many I eat. Plus, now I have a cool story to tell others, and when I do tell people that I got a kidney stone at 18 even though the chances of that happening at such a young age are very slim, I get a wide range of shocked faces.
When life tests you by throwing some pretty awful things your way, just know that there are perks to every situation. As long as you surround yourself with people that will be there for you whenever you’re in trouble, you’ll find it a lot easier to get through a tough situation. Stay strong, and always drink plenty of water!
Sources: [Cover Photo by Taylor Ann Wright on Unsplash, GIFS via Tenor]