Grumpy eyeroll. Kalorm has no idea how to tell if he's hungry! He's pretty sure his body has forgotten how to do that! 

"Thirsty," he admits after a moment. 

"I'm not surprised! I think your body is probably ready to try out clear fluids with some calories in them, and I predict you'll feel way better and more up for PT. Uh, what do you think you're in the mood for? Hot drink or cold, and what flavor - we have tons of options–" 

Of course they do. Kalorm rolls his eyes again. Telling him there are a lot of options and stopping there is sort of the opposite of helpful! Not that he really wants to try to pay attention to Merrin listing twenty drink flavors. That sounds hard. He scowls. "Can. You pick." 

Yeah that's relatable. Merrin also gets worsening decision paralysis about food the more desperately she needs it. 

She is going to pretty confidently guess that Kalorm prefers minimally-processed options. "How about apple juice? Can do warm or cold, whichever sounds tastier." Aaaaand maybe she will sneakily request apple juice with additional sweetener added – it's not the default, most people are trying to avoid excessively-superstimulus-y foods, but Kalorm very badly needs the calories. 

Who drinks warm apple juice. That sounds terrible. He doesn't really want it cold either, though, but he's having a weirdly hard time figuring out what words describe the thing he wants. "Neither," he manages. "...Normal?" 

Awwwww why is that so weirdly adorable? "You mean, like, room temperature?" 

Oh, is that the word? Probably. Words are terrible. EVERYTHING is terrible Merrin is not especially terrible. She even AGREES with him about what "normal" temperature apple juice should be. Kalorm nods. 

He can have apple juice! (With bonus sugar added, so it's like 300 calories if he drinks all of it.) In a leakproof cup with a straw, cleverly designed with a one-way valve so it won't spill even if he turns it upside down, and - again - two easy-grip handles.

And Merrin is going to watch him closely and, if necessary, make herself very obnoxious by reminding him to slow down. He seemed to have enough trouble with the process yesterday that he didn't need exogenous nagging, but he's had another night of rest and recovery – which, for Kalorm, can add up to pretty substantial improvements, it's great, he is the best patient – and also room-temperature apple juice might be more tempting to gulp down than hot water? 

Apple juice is the BEST THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, and also Kalorm does not especially need nagging to take it slowly because, one, his arms are still getting tired inside ten seconds, and two, when he makes the mistake of taking three big sips in a row, his stomach starts cramping painfully. This is VERY UNFAIR because apple juice is amazing and he's even more thirsty than he realized, but it does incentivize taking smaller sips and letting the apple juice sit in his mouth for a while before swallowing it. 

(It's going to take him, like, forty minutes to finish all of his apple juice.) 

That's fine! Merrin is not in a rush! She's also, not exactly too tired to read chart updates - she slept fine - but her brain is throwing out a loud DON'TWANNA error signal every time she considers it. She...will just sit here reading fanfic, and disappear off twice to add more caffeine to her system. 

Halthis will handle the tedious and repetitive process of making sure Kalorm's oxygen mask spends enough time on his face and monitoring his oxygenation, since Merrin does not look incredibly up for this. Kalorm currently needs 40% oxygen at rest and 50% while doing pretty much any level of activity - and it doesn't count if he only has he oxygen mask on his face half the time. (The mask theoretically has a panel that can open and allow a straw through, but Kalorm is nowhere near coordinated enough to line the straw up with it and then also with his mouth. He's barely managing not to stab himself in the face with it. It seems less awkward and unpleasant for everyone if she just repeatedly quick-releases the strap on one side and gets it out of his way.)

Anyway, if he's spending a quarter to a third of his time without the mask and also breathing less because he's drinking, he needs about 80% O2 to avoid dropping below 88% even briefly during his mask-off blocks, though she can get away with 60% if she also adds a layer of nasal cannula at their max flow rate. He's more able to breathe through his nose now that he's down to just the slim and relatively non-obstructing feeding tube. 

Does Kalorm, in fact, seem any more energetic or less cranky after he's managed to work his way through all 300-ish calories of juice? 

Well, immediately after that he wants to flop for at least fifteen minutes, because his arms and hands - and even his shoulders and pectoral muscles - feel like they have approximately the structural integrity of a child's toy bridge built out of paper mache. 

Also his abs and back and shoulders and pecs are STILL SORE. He's...maybe just in more pain generally? He wasn't sure at first if he was overthinking it or imagining it, but his chest hurts more than it did yesterday when he takes deep breaths. Coughing is...bearable...but hurts enough that he's definitely been putting some effort into delaying it. 

He doesn't know why it should hurt more! He's supposed to be getting better, right? What if he's not. What if something is WRONG and he's getting WORSE. ...No, Merrin would probably have said something– ...except that he definitely has a vague, hazy memory of Merrin earnestly asking him to tell her if he felt worse in any way, because he might notice before any of their tests did? (Kalorm feels kind of vindicated by this in his belief that machines and tests are stupid.) 

So. He should tell Merrin there's a problem. He should tell Merrin right now in case it's the scary sort of problem? Maybe it isn't, maybe it's the sort of problem where she can just give him drugs or tell him he needs to lie in a particular position and that fixes it, but Kalorm has no idea which kind of problem it might be - maybe he would if he could THINK but thinking is still kind of hard even if it's less hard than before - and Merrin will figure it out. 

(Kalorm is, in fact, now getting kind of stressed and upset and scared! It does not even slightly occur to him for a moment to be tempted to put off telling Merrin because finding out that he has a scary problem would be bad. However much he hates this fact, he did grow up in dath ilan.) 

He clears his throat (ouch, but less ouch than before.) "Merrin?" 

She's been reading fanfiction and feeling bad about herself for lacking the motivation to do anything more useful to Kalorm. She glances up - and then immediately slides her chair over to him, without even bothering to close the fanfic site. 

"Kalorm? What is it?" 

He gives her a plaintive look. "Hurts. More." 

Oh no what– oh no they totally stopped his IV pain medication overnight, didn't they. And, since it was the middle of the night and Kalorm's opinions about middle-of-the-night chats are very predictable, probably didn't say anything or at least didn't make sure they had explained in a way he understood. And now Kalorm is clearly freaked out about the fact that something is Worse In An Unexplained Way - and has accumulated some probably-very-sticky priors on what that means - and Merrin feels kind of terrible about it! 

She reaches out and takes his hand. "Kalorm, I am almost certain that you're fine, I– so a lot of why I was worried about you before is because you looked worrying, uh, in a way that wasn't legible, but - you don't look worrying right now. You look, uh, upset. What's bothering you - where does it hurt more -?" 

Kalorm cannot really parse what that expression means but it's probably not Merrin mocking him for missing something obvious? (Or - not mocking, exactly, not even exactly pitying, just - noticing, and updating, and Kalorm hates it hates it hates it but that's beside the point because Merrin of all people is almost certainly not doing the thing he hates.) 

He tries to think about the actual answer to her question. Talking hurts less but thinking of words continues to be terrible. He swallows. "Chest hurts. And - sore - muscles...?" 

Merrin squeezes his hand. "I'm not surprised or worried about any of that. We, uh, paused your continuous pain medication overnight so we could let you move around and not be worried about IV lines. And I did five minutes of chest compressions on you when your heart stopped beating, which was only, uhhhhh,"

wow she's been here for too long, the days are blurring together and her brain is returning a slow rather than instant result on that query,

"- I guess five coming on six days ago? I hoped I could hurt you less than the machine we usually use, but I couldn't try to not hurt you, it was more important for your body to keep getting circulation." 

Wow that is, uh, not something she's at all sure was helpful to say out loud! However, she is kind of too something-that-isn't-tired to worry about that right now. 

"Anyway, we'd also had to do the bypass surgery earlier - that's 10 days ago now - and you had some broken ribs from the boat accident in the storm. So I am really not surprised your chest hurts. And you did a lot of physical activity yesterday so I'm also not surprised that your muscles are sore. Uh. I think we should try giving you a dose of one of the longer-acting pain medications that we know works for you, and - if you still feel bad after, then I'll maybe start to worry. Okay?" 

Kalorm listens. Nods. ...Starts smirking. 

That was NOT among the responses that Merrin was expecting! "Is that, uh, a yes on pain meds?" (Kalorm nods, but does not stop smirking.) "Uh. Okay. ...What?" 

Actually Kalorm is not being frustrating on purpose at all and had every intention of telling her, words are just hard and breathing is still enough of a whole thing that sentences are separately hard. It's worth it, though. "Did. Eight minutes. Once," he says, smugly. 

Eight minutes of - taking pain medications, or of not taking pain medications, that doesn't make any sense– ohhhhhhh. "You did, uh, eight minutes of chest compressions by hand that's impressive and I have so many questions how did that even come up–" 

Halthis snickers. "She sounds exactly like I did when she brought up five minutes. - wait are you both undercover aquatic-phase Sparashki you know that would explain kind of a lot." 

They're both what?? What does that even mean??? Baffled frustrated Kalorm! 

"Dumb inside joke don't worry about it." Kalorm is probably the one person she's ever met who is more irritated about all the constant pranks than she is. "Anyway uh I do want to hear that story but it can wait until talking is less exhausting for you, and also the obvious answer for me was 'Exception Handling' and probably the obvious answer for you is 'boat accident'."

(Maybe Khemeth knows? Merrin is pretty curious but separately she urgently wants to know if whoever it was ended up being okay! That seems important!) 

That particular Merrin expression is really not hard to read. "Were fine," he confirms. "Can I - walk - today?"