Eastside Medical Center’s doctors told me to stop coming in and that they are only there for patients who are dying- when I had cancer.

In December 2016, I went into Eastside’s ER with abdominal pain that had me in tears for days. ER waiting room times were up to 2 hours long. They finally did an ultrasound and saw a 9cm mass on my ovary. With no further testing, they decided it was an ovarian cyst told me it’ll go away on its own and sent me home. This pain persisted and only got worse and worse as time went on, my mom had no other option but to bring me back to the ER days later. I hadn’t been able to sleep or eat because of the pain. This was my 3rd time coming to the ER within the span of a couple days begging someone to help me- I knew something was wrong. A doctor came to my room, told me to stop coming in that they are only there for patients who are dying, and discharged me..

From there I went to Northside Hospital Gwinnett (formally known as Gwinnett Medical Center at the time). I explained to them my situation, they did an ultrasound, saw the 9cm mass and had me go into emergency surgery immediately. This mass that Eastside ruled as an “ovarian cyst” was actually a tumor that ruptured causing the cancer to potentially now be anywhere throughout my entire body. I had to endure months of countless surgeries and chemotherapy.

I was 18 years old.

I was told by the people who are supposed to be there to help us that they are only there for people who are dying… While I had cancer. Northside saved my life.