Damn, mine ruptured about 4 months back and I was in the hospital 8 hours after that first pain hit. How long did you wait it out for?
My answer to OP is pretty straightforward. I took 2-3 days off work because of a bunch of family illnesses that had me stressed. I went into a coc00n of depression and self pity, and when I wasn't at the hospital or looking after relatives, I was in my room trying to smoke myself onto the planet Jupiter. Watching Netflix, smoking reggie, eating two bags of Tostitos lime flavored tortilla chips. Finished my salsa and kept plunging into the bag. Finished the bag in the classic fat person style, by pouring the crumbs and everything into my mouth. Said to myself, "I could go for some more of these...."
Then the vision hit me. A vision of myself progressing in age (I was 22, about to turn 23 when this happened), getting fatter and fatter, feeling more lonely, stuck in a dead end job, hating myself, nobody around to comfort me, socialize with, no bytches, no nothing. I stopped my tv show and spend the next two hours throwing out junk food. I spend the next two hours after that looking at weight loss stuff on the internet and taking a hard, sober look at what I was doing to myself and allowing stress to do to me. I resolved to change myself into the person I always saw myself as and stop settling for what little I had at that point. My relatives got better. I hit the gym and gained some confidence in myself. Started losing weight and talking to people about the power of positivity. A lot has changed since that day, and I'm not where I want to be yet, but when I think about the journey like this it makes it easier to prepare myself for the next phase.
I don't get to talk about the power of positivity or how you can change your life as often as I used to, but I'm using this year to get back into that personal growth swing. And I hope someone on here stumbles upon this thread and takes the posts in here as motivation. It's never too late to do better by yourself. Don't lose hope.