There are few things more terrifying than understanding that you are dying — in the middle of a hospital. The very place that’s meant to save you.

And no one is listening to you.

That’s the situation 15-year-old Alice Tapper, the daughter of CNN journalist Jake Tapper, found herself in. But that’s not even the half of it. Alice was suffering from something that’s entirely routine — appendicitis. It’s so routine, in fact, that 250,000 cases are reported each year in the U.S., according to Medscape.

But medical officials very definitely didn’t listen to her and diagnosed her with everything but the kitchen sink. She’s written an op-ed for CNN about her harrowing experience, revealing that she “almost died” because doctors misdiagnosed her. And because doctors kept misdiagnosing her condition, it quickly worsened.

“I almost died around Thanksgiving last year, and it was entirely preventable,” Alice writes. “It started one weekend in November 2021 with stomach cramping, a low fever, chills and vomiting. Soon it became clear I needed to go to the emergency room. By the time I got there, I had low blood pressure, an elevated heart rate, intense abdominal pain and a high white blood cell count.”

Alice explains she “was given IV fluids to combat [her] dehydration,” but this didn’t work. Doctors “didn’t know what was wrong,” she writes, and in their confusion, it almost seemed like they were waiting for her “to tell them what to do.”

Her abdominal pain continued to worsen and she was transferred to another hospital where her parents urged doctors to check her for appendicitis, The Independent reports. That isn’t what happened, however.

“Since I was tender all over my abdomen — not just on my right side — the doctors ruled it out,” she writes. “My parents kept pressing, so a doctor told me to stand up and jump. I could barely get an inch off the ground. The doctors concluded that what I had must be a viral infection and would eventually just go away.”

Obviously, medical officials were trying to dot their i’s and cross their t’s here and the teen’s symptoms didn’t match their criteria for appendicitis. Her symptoms seemed to throw them off.

According to the Mayo Clinic, appendicitis is “an inflammation of the appendix, a finger-shaped pouch that projects from your colon on the lower right side of your abdomen.” Appendicitis usually causes pain in the lower abdomen, but for many people that pain “begins around the navel and then moves.”

In her op-ed, Alice reflects on how her condition continued to worsen. Her “skin started turning a pale green” and adds that her mother, Jennifer Marie Brown, asked doctors to give her daughter a sonogram to see what was going wrong. Doctors told her it “wasn’t needed.”

“My dad asked why I couldn’t get antibiotics; the doctors said for a viral infection they could do more harm than good,” she writes. “My parents kept pushing for a gastroenterologist who might have more insight about my condition to evaluate me, but one never came.”

But the most exasperating part for her was likely how “helpless” she felt at the time, and she notes: “My condition wasn’t the only thing that alarmed me; so did the lack of recognition I received from the hospital. I was not being heard; when I described to the doctors how much pain I was in, they responded with condescending looks.”

Then at one point, her father got “the number for the hospital administrator and begged for a gastroenterologist,” and when she finally underwent the much-needed abdominal x-ray, it showed she didn’t have a viral infection. Then it was time for an ultrasound — and that revealed what was wrong.

“I had a perforated appendix that was leaking a poisonous stream of bacteria throughout my internal organs,” she writes. “When I learned, I was almost relieved. At least the doctors now had a plan.”

Soon after, the night became a “blur” as she underwent a CT scan and emergency surgery.

“Two laparoscopic drains were inserted in my body to get rid of the toxic leakage,” Alice tells us. “I had sepsis and we would later learn I was going into hypovolemic shock — which can cause organs to stop working. That was the scariest night of my life.”

She spent the next week in the hospital, “bedridden with uncomfortable drains in [her] body and horribly sharp cramping pains.”

In the aftermath, when things had calmed down, Alice’s mom Jennifer researched how often appendicitis goes undiagnosed and uncovered a study by Dr. Prashat Mahajan. The study was published in the JAMA Network Open.

The data collected in the study showed that during emergency room visits found that “the diagnosis of appendicitis is missed in 3.8 percent to 15.0 percent of children, and in 5.9 percent to 23.9 percent of adults.”

Alice concluded her op-ed by noting just how important it was for her to “spread awareness about misdiagnoses of appendicitis.”

“The X-ray machine was down the hall, the CT machine just a floor below, the sonogram machine just steps away and the antibiotics I needed were just one phone call away,” she writes. “But doctors didn’t utilize these tools to quickly diangose and treat me, and as a result, I almost died.”

She expressed gratitude to her father, Jake Tapper, for making the telephone call that finally got through to someone.

“It breaks my heart to think about the boys and girls who don’t have parents who can get the phone number of the hospital administrator — who can’t make their voices break through.”

“I still can’t believe this happened to me — and I don’t want it to happen to anyone else.”

But this is far too often what happens to you when you’re 15 and your body throws you an unexpected curve. Alice was fortunate to have her parents there to pull the right strings but what happens when you’re by yourself and alone? Doctors weren’t willing to listen to her and she suffered as a result. Diseases and medical conditions don’t always present with the exact same symptoms. I hope the medical community listens to her. Teenagers shouldn’t have to shout to be listened to.