That's probably good? His BP is up too, she can ease down on the norepi. She's started doing it in increments of 1 instead of 2 ml/h, because his blood pressure is still kind of all over the place. 

She finishes hanging the potassium and adjusting drips, and then crosses to the other side of the bed where he can see her better at his current angle. She takes his hand. "Hey. I'm back, sorry. And sorry about the IV pump. Are you comfortable?" 

He squints at her, trying to concentrate enough to get clear surface thoughts, and then shakes his head, no he is very much not comfortable right now. Though he's not sure what Marian can do about it, he can't exactly ask her to untie him. 

Aaaaand now for the guessing game of 'what's bothering my patient, who can't communicate other than yes/no answers.' 

"Do you want to lie on your other side now?" 

Well, that's better than nothing, at least it might help with the muscle cramp. Ma'ar nods. 

"I can get someone to help in a bit, and do that. Anything else?"

     (Nod.) 

"Hmm. Is the tube in your throat bothering you?" She mimes pointing at her own mouth and neck.

VEHEMENT nod. He starts coughing. 

"I know, I know! I'm sorry, it will be uncomfortable, but you need it right now to help out with your breathing, until you're stronger."

Marian swings down her stethoscope from her neck; she's not a fan of how that cough sounds. 

- and yep, his lungs sound kind of wet and crackly. Either he's fluid overloaded, which doesn't seem likely from the monitor numbers, or he...aspirated during intubation? Or before that? Either way they should get an X-ray and he needs suctioning and he's probably going to flip his shit about that, given how just a beeping IV pump apparently was enough to wake him. 

She's so far behind she hasn't even done a single bit of charting... 

"Listen, I need to help you cough up that, uh, stuff. And then I have to slide a tube into your nose down to your stomach, because you can't swallow right now. Then we're going to get an X-ray, a, a picture of your chest, to see how your lungs are and make sure the tubes are going to the right places..." 

He tries to follow, but the headache is worsening, even passive Thoughtsensing is too hard on his Gifts, and also she said, like, three things and he's already forgotten the first two. 

He closes his eyes and focused on staying calm. 

Marian can't tell if he followed that at all; maybe it was too much for his limited English? If she had to guess he understands more English than French but she repeats it all in French anyway before she goes to suction him. 

Aaaaaaah what in all hells is happening to him. It's incredibly uncomfortable and also just feels wrong, invasive, and despite all of Ma'ar's best efforts, he is kind of panicking now. 

Poor guy. Marian sort of leans on his chest with her elbow, trying to hold him still while she finishes drawing out the suction catheter. There's a moderate amount of secretions, more liquid than goopy and more white than yellow. Still disgusting but not the worst kind of lung snot. 

"Sorry sorry sorry! That's it I'm all done with that part. Just try to relax. You're okay. You did great. I'm going to give you more medicine to keep you comfortable, all right?" She can lower his dose later, but given the amount of STUFF she has to subject him to next, and the fact that his blood pressure is kind of skyrocketing right now, she's pretty sure he can handle her pushing an extra 0.5mg of the midazolam and then bumping his drip to 5mg/h. 

Ma'ar feels the dizziness and intense drowsiness hit him again, and fights it, clinging to consciousness. 

He doesn't understand why Marian hurt him, now. He's too groggy and also too upset to make Thoughtsensing work, so he has no idea what she's saying - it sounds apologetic, but is there any reason at all he should trust that now - 

Focus. Breathe. 

...Breathing does feel odd, it's - not really happening with his volition? If anything it takes less effort than it should, his lungs inflating by themselves. 

"Better now?" He was giving her such an...almost a betrayed look, and now Marian feels terrible, it seems like she didn't manage to explain what she was going to do and it scared him. She hunts around for a tissue box, gives up and grabs a paper towel from the sink dispenser, and wipes the tears spilling from her patient's eyes after the coughing fit and gagging. She dabs at the beads of sweat on his forehead. "I'm sorry. Do you, uh, need a few minutes before I do anything else?" 

Oh she's asking a question again. With valiant effort, Ma'ar scrabbles at her surface thoughts. 

...It makes a difference, that she's asking him that. He nods. 

"All right. Uh, I do still need to do the tube going to your stomach. I'll tell you when I'm setting up, but you don't need to try to stay awake - if you're sleepy, just sleep, okay?" 

The thought-concept she's conveying is bizarre, and she's also distracted, not as fully open and focused toward him as before. Whatever it is sounds ominous, but - at least she clearly thinks it's meant to help, not harm? He's so confused. 

He nods and closes his eyes. 

"Why don't I go get someone to help turn you?" And she can see if Dr Prissan is around and ask about pushing the rest of her syringe of propofol before she NG-tubes him, because she has a feeling that otherwise it's going to be a bad time for both of them. 

Dr Prissan's offhand "sure, do whatever you want" is very in-character for him despite being kind of obnoxious, that's not a medical order at all, but Marian diligently translates it into the computer as '4mg propofol IV as needed for procedure sedation', and then asks Anne-Marie if she's got a minute to help with a turn. The answer is yes if Marian will help turn her two patients first. 

With that further delay, it's 9:50 am by the time she makes it back to the room at the end of the hall, and her guy is, apparently, asleep again. 

He squirms and grimaces when they pull him up higher in the bed, and then seems faintly restless, trying to move his leg. 

"Is that uncomfortable? Sorry." She lifts his leg and bends it through some range-of-motion exercises, then slides a pillow under it. "Better? Anne-Marie, thank you, that's all." 

Ma'ar doesn't know if she's talking to him or what she's saying. He's just barely awake enough to notice that they must have untied him and he could try to do something with that, but he's still too groggy to actually formulate a plan before the bonds are back in place, as tight as ever. Though Marian is a lot more careful about making sure they don't hurt or pull his arms at uncomfortable angles. 

He doesn't seem alert enough to communicate, right now, so Marian, after glancing up to make sure the blood pressure is reasonable, gives him the rest of the propofol and tosses the empty syringe. Aaaaand now she has five minutes of grace to get this done without him feeling it... 

Placing NG tubes in already-intubated patients can be annoying; at one point she thinks she has it, before realizing the tube is just coiling up in the back of his throat. She pulls back most of the way and tries it again. 

She's less certain than she would like that it's definitely in his stomach and not a lung - she can't get any gastric contents pulled back in the syringe - but pushing a bit of air in while listening with her stethoscope results in a gurgle in the stomach region, and doesn't do anything weird to the ventilator screen tracing. So it's probably okay? Good enough to call for an X-ray tech stat, anyway, and hope they get there before her patient wakes up enough to object. 

Inconveniently, she forgot that the X-ray process, which requires sitting him upright and basically centered on his back and then shoving a hard board behind him, was going to thoroughly mess up her careful job of positioning him comfortably. And he's awake enough to start coughing when they accidentally wiggle his endotracheal tube; she has to ask the tech to wait thirty seconds until he's still again. 

He doesn't show any signs of actual consciousness until afterward, when she's arm-twisting the tech into helping get him comfy again. His eyes flicker open, move around the room a bit, rest briefly on her, and then close. 

"That's it. Just get some rest." She pats his shoulder. When it looks like he's calm and staying that way, she decreases the midazolam back down to, hmm, she'll go with 3 mg/h, he seemed uncomfortable on two.

Oh god and it's 10 am somehow, she should do a blood sugar AGAIN.

 It comes back at 107, which is still technically normal. His temperature is 33.4 now and there's even more pee in the bag. 

He looks...pretty good, actually, compared to before. Still pale, but his lips are pink rather than greyish and his extremities no longer have the dusky, mottled look from limited peripheral bloodflow. 

She smiles to herself, finally one thing is going right, and then reluctantly departs to check if her other lady needs cleaning again. 

(She DOES.)