ONE DAY FROM GONE

By Brandon Petersen

The boom box hummed softly behind the bench, its bass line folding into the sounds of cleats slapping turf and laughter carrying across the field.

It was a bright, ordinary morning at Lake Forest Park — drills, music, sunlight.

Jayd Sweet sat on the first concrete step, her feet planted on the ground just a few yards from the sideline, far enough down for a bit of privacy but close enough to watch the team prepare for its upcoming contest with Stanton.

The air smelled faintly of jade blossoms and spray-on sunscreen; the kind of Southern California scents you forget to appreciate until life reminds you how fragile normal can be.

She glanced toward the field, eyes pensive; they darted between the ground and her teammates, unsure of how to say the next few words just right.

"It's crazy," she finally did say, her voice steady; confident. "These little moments — the music, the girls yelling, just feeling the sun — I don't take any of it for granted anymore."

For many people, that sentence might sound cliché.

For Jayd Sweet, the words represent a real, earned perspective, a sort of forged steel of enlightenment, shaped by the ultimate struggle: life or death.

What follows is the story of how a college soccer player came to see the smallest things — laughter, movement, a normal day — as sacred.

The Girl Before

Sweet grew up in San Pedro, California, a kid whose world revolved around her family, her friends, and the game.

"I was born in Arcadia and raised in San Pedro. My parents are really great. I have nothing but good things to say about my family," she said. "My parents divorced when I was thirteen, and I have a younger sister (Mackenzie) — she's nine years younger. That was definitely a rough period for everybody. But I think my family showed me nothing but support during that time. It definitely brought me closer to my dad."

Her father, Gregor, was the one who first put a ball at her feet.

"I grew up playing soccer because of him," she said. "It's been a part of my life since I was five years old. Everyone at school knew me as the soccer player."

At first, she hated it.

"As a little five-year-old, you're like, 'I don't want to do this.' The socks are hard to put on, the cleats are terrible. My dad had to bribe me with money just to play. Every goal was five or ten bucks. Eventually, I realized it was our way of connecting."

She rose quickly, joining the LA Galaxy youth club.

"It was great, but I was always the youngest. I'm an '04, but I played with '03 girls. It taught me a lot — mostly how to hold my own. There was favoritism, there was politics, but I learned from it."

By twelve, she'd earned a call-up to a higher team.

"That coach was amazing," she said. "He praised me constantly. It gave me confidence."

Two years later, Sweet was offered a spot in the LA Galaxy Girls Academy — a dream and a shock rolled into one.

"They were using lingo I'd never even heard. I felt so out of place. I struggled with confidence, always feeling like the other girls were better. But I stuck with it. And then… COVID hit. Everything shut down."

The Descent

She doesn't talk about pain dramatically.

When Jayd revisits it, it's quiet — factual even — like she's reading it off a report her body still remembers by heart.

"It started about a year ago this month," she said. "I woke up for school on a Monday morning and immediately felt this huge pain in my stomach — right here."

She hovered both hands above her upper abdomen.

"I thought maybe it'd go away, but it didn't. I went to the bathroom and started throwing up. My dad heard me — I was making unhuman noises. It didn't even sound like me."

Gregor and Jayd rushed to the nearest hospital.

"They took some tests but no imaging," Sweet said. "They told me it was a bladder infection and sent me home with medication."

But Sweet spent the next two days in agony.

"Tuesday and Wednesday were the worst days of my life," she said. "I was hallucinating in the middle of the night, throwing up, barely able to stand."

Her father finally called her primary doctor.

"She took one look at me and said, 'I can't help you. You need to go to the emergency room.'"

Next was a trip to Torrance, where they waited three hours in the ER.

"They took an x-ray and an ultrasound. They couldn't find my appendix. They said there was a foreign body in my stomach, something microscopic. They asked if I'd swallowed metal or plastic. I said 'no.' They told me I had a bowel obstruction."

Her stomach had swollen to twice its size.

"It was inflamed and bulging," she said. "But they still sent me away — transferred me to a nonprofit hospital in L.A. that took my insurance."

That hospital, she said, was hell.

"I was in a 20x20 room divided by curtains with three other people. I couldn't move. They hooked me up to antibiotics for four days. I didn't know what was happening."

By Sunday, they released her.

Sweet stared at the sky, eyes closed with a bright smile, basking in the glow of the memory.

She was recalling how freeing the sun felt when she finally got to feel it again.

"They said the bowel obstruction was gone and sent me home," she said. "It was the best feeling ever — I thought it was over."

The Turn

But it wasn't over.

The next afternoon, the pain returned with tidal wave force, and it was all Sweet could do to keep from crashing out.

"I went to school that morning, visited some friends, and around four o'clock, it hit again," she said. "The same pain, just worse. I was terrified. My friend drove me home. My mom (Sarah) tried feeding me fibrous food — that's what the hospital told us to do. We still thought it was the bowels."

Hours passed.

"I was projectile vomiting, screaming in pain. My mom finally said, 'I don't know what to do, we're going back to the hospital.'"

Jayd, Sarah and her boyfriend climbed into the car, panic rising with every turn of the wheel.

"We were at a red light on the same street as an old hospital my grandfather had spent time in," Sweet said. "My mom looked at it and said, 'No. We're not going back there. Turn right. Right now.'"

Sarah's boyfriend turned the car right.

That moment — guided by her mother's instinct — saved Jayd's life.

"At the new hospital, they took one look at me and rushed me back," Sweet said. "Within 20 minutes, the CT scan showed a ruptured appendix. The doctors told us it had probably been ruptured for days."

The infection had been burning inside her all week, hidden beneath misdiagnoses and red tape.

She was a day from septic shock.

One day from gone.

The Surgery

By the time she reached the operating table, her body was losing the fight.

"They called a surgeon immediately," Sweet said. "A nurse came in and said, 'We have to put this tube down your nose into your stomach.' I was fully awake. It was about two in the morning."

She inhaled, eyes distant, recalling the fear, then the agony.

"It was the worst thing I've ever felt in my life. She said, 'It has to go from here to here,' and started pushing it in. It was thick. I was crying,"

Sweet fixed her eyes on the sun-drenched turf, her hands folding into an anxious ball in her lap.

"I just tried to stay calm."

Everything blurred.

"It felt like a movie scene. People were talking but I couldn't hear. I didn't care what happened anymore."

They took her to surgery before sunrise.

"When I woke up, I had lines everywhere, a catheter, tubes," she remembered. "The first thing I yelled was, 'I have to pee!'"

She giggled, a moment of surreal levity.

"The nurses rushed over saying, 'You can go!' and I was so confused," she said.

Then the pain arrived.

"I looked down and saw it — there was an open wound with black foam and vacuum suction (around it)," Sweet said. "They wrapped a compression band around me. My parents came in. I couldn't think.

"I was gone."

The doctors told her they'd left her incision open — her infection levels were off the charts, and they had to be able to go back in at a moment's notice.

"My white blood cell count was triple what it should've been," she said. "I had two abscesses connected to my intestines. They took out the abscesses, two inches of my small intestine, and half of my omentum. I didn't even know what that was. It's the thing that holds your organs together."

For days, she drifted between consciousness and fever, her mother watching every breath.

Forgiveness and Redemption

"Before all this, my mom and I didn't have the best relationship," Sweet said. "We loved each other, but it was strained."

She paused, her eyes searching. When she spoke, her voice softened.

"This changed everything," she said, looking up at me briefly.

"The hospital didn't have beds for visitors," she said. "My mom grabbed two chairs, put pillows between them, and slept there every night for a week. She gave me baths. She was my voice when I couldn't talk."

It made me think of the sacrifices my own mom has made for me, and I tried to hold back a tear.

Jayd saved me with an "awe," then moved her attention back to the field.

Her teammates were running drills.

"I didn't realize how much you use your stomach until you can't," she said. "I couldn't laugh, cough, sneeze, speak, or even sit up. She did everything. I looked up at her that first night and thought, I can't believe she's still here. She didn't leave me."

After Sweet left the hospital, she stayed at her mom's house for two weeks.

"She took care of me the whole time," she said. "That period changed our relationship forever. It made us closer than we've ever been."

There was a quiet gratitude in her tone when she said it — like a prayer had been answered.

Faith and Perspective

"When they finally let me go home, it was surreal," Sweet said. "I hadn't eaten in three weeks. They'd been testing me with broth and tiny bites of food, and finally they said, 'You can go home.'"

She smiled, remembering the photo.

"I have a picture of me leaving the hospital — I'm grinning so big. I'd lost 20 pounds and didn't recognize myself, but I was so happy. It was like the world was new again."

That new world changed her career path.

"The nurses were so kind — they talked to me, let me walk around at night when I couldn't sleep. They're the reason I changed my major to nursing."

She paused, her voice lifting.

"I came out of it with a whole new perspective," she said. "It's a privilege just to walk on your two feet. It's a privilege to laugh."

She chuckled, remembering.

"In the hospital, my parents would come play Uno. I couldn't laugh without holding my stomach, but I still tried. It's funny now. Back then, it was painful. But I'll never forget that."

She took a breath.

"I know now that God put this in my path for a reason."

The Return

"Three days after I got home, I'd totally given up on soccer," Sweet said. "I thought that part of my life was over. Then Jack texted me: 'Hey mate, how you doing?'"

Her attention drifted to head coach Jack Gidney planted firmly between 40 moving players, a whistle dangling from between his lips.

I chuckled to myself. "Mate." Perfect.

"At first I didn't tell him what happened. I said, 'Your team's doing great!' Then he said, 'When am I getting you out for a training?'"

That's when she told him.

"'I had major abdominal surgery,' I said. And he immediately dropped the soccer talk. He said, 'Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?'"

Her dad, knowing her love for the game, told her not to shut the door.

"'Focus on recovery,' he said, 'but don't close it," she said. "Maybe God's putting this in your path for a reason.'"

Sweet took her father's words to heart.

"I cried about it so many times. But by March, I started training again — just small sessions, individual work with a coach friend. Passing drills, shooting, just getting used to the ball again."

A gentle smile slowly spread from ear to ear.

"Every time I touched the ball, I thanked God," she said. "Every time I put my cleats on, I said 'thank you.' The perspective you gain after something like that — it's crazy."

One Year Later

Now she's back.

And happy.

"I'm totally enjoying myself," she said. "Like any athlete coming back, it's frustrating sometimes — I expect so much of myself. But I try to remember where I was. Give myself grace."

Her eyes were bright.

"The girls who know my story have been amazing. So supportive. This team feels different — we laugh, we connect. It's just fun. That's what I needed."

She spoke of her coaches, too.

"Jack and Matt are great — passionate, funny, open to feedback. We laugh all the time. I didn't want to come back into a serious, uptight environment.

"This is perfect."

She looked toward the field, where her teammates were still running drills, music still playing faintly from the boom box.

"This Halloween, we'll be traveling up to Simpson. Some of the girls are upset about being on the road, but me? From where I was a year ago, this is such an upgrade."

She laughed.

"Last year I was in the hospital, I'd lost 20 pounds, I couldn't even stand. This year I'm back, playing the game I love."

Then she stopped to find my eyes again.

She wanted me to hear her.

"My surgeon told my parents that if we'd waited overnight, I wouldn't have made it," she said. "One more night — gone."

Somehow, Jayd knew her words would hit me hard.

Turns out, she was right.

The sound of the field carried between us again: the sharp sting of a whistle, the thud of the ball, the echo of girls calling each other's names.

Life, unremarkable and beautiful.

Jayd sat quietly, eyes fixed on the field, her coaches and teammates, the game, her routine.

"I'm just thankful," she said finally. "For my family, for my coaches, for everyone who gave me another chance to live my dream."

For me, it was yet another reminder that beauty inevitably replaces pain.

And it's that promise that keeps us going.