Photographs (Luke Hemmings)

Chapter 24

I woke up to lights being switched on in my room, I was wincing from the brightness.

"Does that hurt your eyes?" my doctor asked, noticing my struggle to keep my eyes open.

"Yeah a little bit," I said letting my eyes adjust. I looked around, seeing my sister still sitting in the chair she was last night. I gave her a small smile, she never left my side.

"Alright, Bailey, I'm going to take you down to the MRI room now," the doctor said. I looked at my sister and she gave me a nod as if she was telling me I would be okay.

On our way down my doctor began to go into more detail about the MRI. I was so nervous that I couldn't focus; I only heard some of what she was saying.

"It's going to be loud, but it shouldn't take long. Just keep still and you'll be done in no time," she said with an encouraging smile.

She was right, the machine was louder than most things I've heard and it didn't help my pounding headache.

"If you need anything there's a microphone so I can hear you," I heard her voice inside the machine.

I tried to stay as still as possible, I knew I didn't want to do this twice. Not too long after, I was back in my room. I told my sister it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I always expect the worst of things. That sounds bad, but I don't get my hopes up too high because I don't want to be disappointed when things don't work out how I expected them to.

"Your results should be done within the next 24 hours. It could be a couple of hours, or around midnight, our technicians just have to look them over. There's some more pain medication on the side table," the doctor said before leaving. I reached over turning on my phone, seeing it was only 10 am.

"It's going to feel like years until they're done," I said groaning. I didn't want to sit in this hospital bed anymore. I also didn't want to feel this pain anymore. I leaned over grabbing the two pills she had left for me, before swallowing them down.

My sister and I sat in silence for a moment before I spoke up.

"I don't have a good feeling about this", I said. From the episodes of house I watched, they only did MRI's if something was seriously wrong. I could feel the nerves forming in my stomach, or it could be the nausea I was feeling.

"Ally and Casey wanted to come by, but I don't know if I want them here if we get the results. I want to know what's happening before I have them here," I said just thinking outloud. I knew it probably wouldn't be anything too bad, sometimes people just had chronic headaches, but I was still worried. Before my sister could reply to my statement, my phone started ringing.

I looked down to see I was getting a call from Luke. I contemplated answering it with my sister in the room, but figured I could use some cheering up and I knew Luke would be the person to do that.

"Hey Luke," I said glancing over at my sister who was pretending to not seem interested.

"How is everything? Are you okay?" he shot questions at me quickly.

"Good morning to you too," I laughed slightly. I was honestly a bit annoyed at how he just immediately was throwing questions at me, but I knew he was just worried. I would be the same way if he was in my place.

"I think they just finished the last of the tests, I probably won't know for a few days," I said stretching the truth.

"Well how are you feeling?" he asked and I could see him running his hands through his hair. I smiled at the thought.

"Alright, I mean my headache isn't as bad, but I'm still slightly nauseous," I said softly, "Can we please stay away from the medical talk though?" I asked politely not wanting to be reminded of everything that was going on. I wanted to be distracted, it was stressing me out.