Take My Picture

Chapter twenty

I could feel my head throbbing harder than I'd ever felt it. It was creating a very painful and uncomfortable feeling in my head which travelled around the rest of my body. I kept my eyes closed in fear of there being a light that would make my head hurt more, but through my eyelids, I could see flashes of red and blue. It felt like I was hearing through thick glass but I could make out a few voices. One I identified as Demi, the other was an unknown males voice. The voices were becoming clearer and clearer the longer I listened. The first thing I could clearly hear was Demi say that she was "going to the hospital with you." I heard some more voices but I couldn't make out what they were saying. I did hear Madison and Brinley's names mentioned and someone saying to call Elise.

Why is Demi going to the hospital, what happened?Why do they need to call Elise? I tried to open my eyes and look around but I couldn't move my head. Panic started rising and I quickly lifted my hands to my head and neck. I could feel a hard plastic around my neck that was stopping me from moving my head. Why do I have a neck brace on? I finally opened my eyes and tried to look around. My eyes landed on Demi as she turned to look at me. "Hey, Harriet," Demi stood up quickly and grabbed my hands to stop them from pulling at the neck brace. "Hey, hey, it's okay." Demi looked over beside her just a little further down. I shifted my eye and saw that she had turned to a paramedic. I looked up and around as best as I could without moving my neck.

"What... where.." I started but struggled to communicate what I was trying to.

"You're in an ambulance, we're on our way to the hospital. Do you remember what happened." Demi explained then questioned softly while stroking the back of my hand with her thumb.

What happened. I remember dancing, then feeling dizzy. But nothing after that. "No," I told her getting a little worried which could be heard in my voice.

"That's okay, that's really common with head injuries. The memory got interrupted when you got knocked out so it was never consolidated or stored in your long or short-term memory." I looked away from Demi to the paramedic who had explained the memory loss. "I'm Nate, can you tell me what you do remember?" He questioned politely.

"I...uh I remember dancing and I remember I got really dizzy and I started to feel sick. Uh... My head was pounding really painfully as well. I remember trying to dance through it but I don't remember what happened after that." I explained truthfully.

"You stopped dancing and you looked really wobbly on your feet, everyone else stopped too and was trying to get your attention but it was like you couldn't hear us. Then you reached out like you were trying to grab ahold of something to steady yourself but there was nothing there and you just fell like dead weight." Demi filled in the gaps for me.

"Okay, well we're taking you to the hospital because you hit your head quite hard when you fell and you were out for a long time. We've put a neck brace on as a precaution, they'll make sure there is no damage when you get to the hospital," the paramedic explained further, releasing some of the stress and panic I was feeling.

When we got to the hospital I was taken straight to X-ray to check my head and spine. When that was done I was taken back to the ER. Demi was sat beside me the whole time and Elise was on the other side once she got there. When Elise got there, the doctor came over to ask some questions.

I explained what happened again and Demi filled in the blanks just like we had in the ambulance. "So you said you felt dizzy then nauseous?" I nodded already having the neck brace taken off and been told I have no breaks or fractures. "How often do you think you get dizzy like that, where you have to hold on to something to keep you up?" Dr Shepherd pushed.

"Uh, it's happened a few times. Sometimes it's not that bad though, it just lasts a few seconds. I just thought it was because I hadn't had enough water or something." Dr Shepherd nodded before continuing to ask his questions.