What we should just say

It's gonna get worse before it gets better

Disclaimer: I still do not own any of the real characters or the show. Nor have I magically become a native speaker overnight.

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Often before we can help the patient it's going to get worse. For example, when someone has cancer they might come into the hospital without experiencing any problems. And then we have to poison them and put them through extensive radiation. That's what's going to make them sick and vomit, lose their hair or make them lose weight. It has to get worse before it gets better. 

-Meredith Grey

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It was the middle of the night when suddenly a lout scream was heard from Meredith room. She felt a sharp pain pulling through her spine that pulled her away from her dreams. Some nurse came running in and was followed by the intern Dr. Lewis.

"Dr. Grey, is everything okay?" he asked completely overchallenged.

"Everything is just fine, that's why I'm cramping together and screaming in pain," Meredith replied sarcastically, annoyed by the intern's stupid question.

"Okay emm sorry," he didn't know what to do. "I'm going to give you something to relax your muscles, so that there won't be any further damage done. Than I'm going to page Dr. Härtl and send you for an MRI."

"Do you really want to put me into a giant magnet, when there are metal screws in my spine?" She argued, getting even more annoyed by the intern and suffering from the pain.

"No, of course not. Take her for a CT and could someone please page Dr. Härtl," the intern requested.

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When she was through with the scans, Dr. Härtl came to discuss the results with her: "Okay, Meredith I have reviewed your results and I know that you won't like this, but we are going to have to either put in a catheter or give you a diaper as well as put you into a spinal brace."

"Is there really no other way?" She asked desperate for another solution.

"Unfortunately not. As I told you before, you must move as little as possible, that includes not going to the bathroom. We might also have to sedate your lower body, that would then definitely result in a catheter. I'll have one of my interns bring the spinal brace. Any preferences who it should be?" Dr. Härtl let her choose.

"Anybody but that Dr. Lewis, he nearly killed me early," Meredith replied exaggerating a bit, "Could I also get a morphine drip?"

"I'll tell the intern to do that as well and I'll see what I can do about Dr. Lewis," he chuckled and left the room.

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"Hey Mer, how did you sleep?" Derek asked approaching her bed.

"Just fine." She had only got a few more hours of sleep after everything going on tonight so she was still really tiered. But she didn't want to talk about it so she just hoped he wouldn't notice.

"Really? Than why did I have an intern asking me whether you had got any more sleep after you woke up in pain?" Derek again asked.

"I'm going to kill that intern," she swore to herself, "My spine shifted a bit but I'm fine. That only means I'm going to get my surgery sooner."

"Okay, but next time please tell me when something like this happens," Derek said with a caring voice.

"Okay," Meredith was surprised but very glad that he didn't make a big deal out of it.

She moved a bit to the side of her bed to make room for Derek and motioned for him to lie down next to her. They talked a bit until Meredith finally fell asleep again.

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At about 1 pm Dr. Härtl and Dr. Williams came into her room to give her a quick check up and make sure everything was okay. By now Derek had moved to the chair next to Meredith, who was still sleeping soundly.

"Hallo Dr. Shepherd," Dr. Härtl greeted.

"Nice to see you Dr. Härtl," Derek replied. He put away the medical journal he'd been reading and made his way over to the bed to wake Meredith. He stroked her hair and then whispered into her ear carefully: "Hey Mer, time to wake up."

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she slowly awoke. When she was fully awake Dr. Härtl asked her to carefully try to sit up, so that he could examine her. She obeyed his order and sat up slowly which wasn't as easy as she thought because of the spinal brace.

"Good, I need you to try and stay as still as possible, because I'll take off your spinal brace now and we want to avoid any further shifting," he told her and assiduously freed her from the splint.

Meredith winced in pain as Dr. Härtl continued to examine her spine. After he had replaced the brace and helped her to lie back down he said: "Okay Meredith, judging by the scans we took earlier and the check-up I just performed I am quite certain that we will be able to presume with the surgery sooner than we initially expected. I'd say in about two to three days. But I also think that we should sedate your lower body, because I'm concerned about the movement happening because of swelling going down."

"So I'll need a catheter?" Meredith asked, already knowing the answer but not wanting to accept it.

"I must say yes. Any other questions?" the elderly doctor replied.

Meredith shook her head so Derek said: "I think we're good."

"Okay than, I'll see you later," he said leaving the room.

After Meredith's doctors had left Derek noticed that she seemed a bit sad. "Hey, you alright?"

"Yeah, I just want to go back to work and have my old live back. I want to stand in surgery all day and complain about being pulled into surgery minutes before my shift should end. I simply want this all to finally be over," Meredith said know crying.

"Me too," Derek replied quietly stroking her hair, "me too."

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AN

Hey, hope anyone is still here. If you are please let me know by commenting and voting. I actually made it and although I can't promise anything I am quite positive I'll be able to continue this story (any comments could be very motivating). I hope you all are okay with everything going on right now. The last dialog between Meredith and Derek somehow reminds me of how I feel in the current situation. If you have any suggestions at all what should happen next please let me now. I am also thinking about renaming this story so don't be confused if it's suddenly called something else.