A fourteen-year-old male visited an emergency room with his mother, complaining of stomach pains, nausea, headache, and no extreme medical history. He was seen by an emergency medicine physician an hour later. During the one-hour duration, the patient said his pain had been consistent, and on the pain scale of 1-10, it was a 7. The physician noticed swelling in the abdominal region and the patient received a blood test. The fourteen-year-old had a slightly elevated white blood cell count and the mother said the child had been vomiting earlier and was suffering from the flu. The high percentage of leukocytes circulating in the blood could have been from a variety of symptoms, as it is quite common in patients fighting off previous infections. The emergency medicine physician released the patient, and ordered him to see his primary care physician in a week if the condition did not lessen. However, the patient did not make it that long, as the following day he was rushed to the emergency room with extreme stomach pain. The patient had suffered from acute appendicitis, and passed away due to his appendix bursting, which led to sepsis. Sepsis is a potentially fatal systemic inflammatory response caused by a severe infection and it was confirmed that the bacteria from the appendix caused the immune response.
