When I was 10, my family went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant that, like all Italian restaurants, served really large plates of pasta. Well I was a growing boy, so I ate my entire plate of spaghetti and meatballs. My mom, when she saw I had finished my plate, sighed and warned that I would probably have a stomach ache that night. I assured her that would not be a problem. This was a fairly regular exchange between the two of us, sometimes she was right, sometimes she was wrong.

So we went continued on the night, went to a movie. By the end of the movie, I was starting to think that maybe my mom was right. My stomach hurt. But I had had a stomach ache before and I wasn't going to let my mom be right, so I just shut up and carried on.

By the time we got home, my stomach was starting to hurt a lot. Worse than anything I had ever felt before. So I gave in, and told my parents that I had a stomach ache. My mom, whom I had put through this before, sighed and told me to go to bed, she'd get me some water, but there wasn't really anything she could do about it.

I told her that this was no normal stomach ache. There had to be something she could do. She sighed and told me to try to sleep it off. If it was still bad in the morning, we would go to the doctor's.

At around midnight, I'm still in the fetal position, awake, on my bed. Unable to sleep because of the pain, I stumble over to my parent's room and tell them that there must be something wrong. I was almost crying at this point. My parents, sleepily, tell me to try throwing up, see if that helps.

I spent the next two hours going between trying to throw up and shit out the worst pain of my life. I'm completely unsuccessful at my task. At that point, I just curled up around the toilet bowl because having the cool porcelain made my stomach feel a bit better, and stayed like that the rest of the night, crying on and off.

Morning comes, and the pain has subsided enough that I can walk downstairs to find my parents making breakfast. I tell them about what happened the night before, collapsing onto a couch. My mom tells me she wants me to join them for their weekly yoga class. I tell her that is impossible as I'm still in an unusual amount of pain and really think there's something wrong here.

My parents look at each other before sighing and saying that they were going to yoga. If I was still in pain when they got back, they'd take me to the doctor, but they were really sure it was just that I had eaten too much the night before.

I spend the next few hours curled up on the couch trying to watch tv but pretty much just crying in pain.

Finally, my parents come home, find me curled up, and get me in the car to take me to a pediatric clinic. All the way there, my mom is sure that I just ate too much, and I let out a yelp of pain on every bump we go over.

We get to the clinic. The nurse asks whats wrong and I tell her. The nurse pushes against my abdomen in two spots and asks me when it hurts, and I tell her. The nurse runs out to get the doctor who does the same. The doctor immediately turns to my parents and tells them that I needed to get to an OR, fast. My appendix is bursting, and it needs to get taken out.

My mom had her appendix taken out when she was 16, says she should have recognized the signs. My mom's girlfriend at the time was a nurse practitioner, says she should have recognized the signs. If I hadn't been freaking out over the idea of going into a surgery, I would have been telling them "I told you so," all the way to the fucking hospital.

TL;DR: Had appendicitis, parents were sure it was just a stomach ache and so kept putting off getting me checked out by a doctor.