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Neal had a feeling that he slept in, was it Sunday?, must be. He hears noises and tries to focus on them. His level of consciousness begins to increase as he tries to get a grip of what is happening around him. June´s staff is normally much quieter.
More and more, Neal realizes that he is extremely uncomfortable. His back hurts, his chest hurts, his limps weigh a ton. He feels so tired, but he tries to move. He can, but it takes all his energy.
Meanwhile, the unfamiliar noises persist, there are bleeps, beeps, and voices but none of the voices are familiar. His eyelids feel like they are stuck with glue.
But then suddenly, it hits him like a Mac truck, he isn´t breathing! All of a sudden, his mind is working a mile a minute to make sense of what is going on. Did they drug him that bad that he stopped breathing?
His throat hurts and there is something inside, his mouth is dry and he isn´t breathing!
Neal tries to take a breath, but it feels like he is trying to breathe through a straw and right at that exact moment a gulf of air is forced into his lungs. An alarm increases close to his head. He starts to cough and an even more annoying alarm goes off by his ear.
So, half asleep, groggy and disoriented, Neal just wants to get that thing out of his mouth and go back to sleep. So he grabs the thing that is in his mouth and pulls. His throat feels like it ripped open and suddenly alarms go off, people start shouting. And suddenly he hears a familiar voice demanding what is going on.
Peter…
But within seconds Neal feels a warmth spreading through him and feels his consciousness slip away in blissful nothingness.
* * *
Peter stepped out of Neal´s hospital room to grab himself a cup of what they call coffee in this hospital. He doesn`t want to leave the hospital just yet. The staff ensured him that Neal was doing OK, heavily sedated, but doing OK, so there was nothing to worry about.
When he was on his way back, he heard commotion coming from Neal´s room, alarms were going off, and staff was talking anxiously. Somebody shouted to up the propofol drip. Peter knew that Neal had this drip to keep him sedated as long as he had the breathing tube. Peter took the last few steps quickly and watched the organized chaos in the room.
"What the hell is going on in here?3 Peter shouts above the alarms.
Apparently Neal has managed to self-extubate. And since his saturation is still not what it is supposed to be, he needs to be re-intubated. Luckily he left the NG-tube alone. A nurse comes in with a pair of soft wrist restraints and starts placing them around Neal´s wrists.
"Are they really necessary?, he doesn´t responds well to being restraint. He was just rescued from a place where they kept him restrained 24 hours a day." Peter argues his case with the duty nurse.
"I know of the situation, sir, but as you just witnessed, he extubated himself, he can harm his vocal cords by doing so, we really need to prevent him from pulling tubes. We will be evaluating his condition every two hours to see if the restraints are necessary and loose enough." the nurse explains.
"You are right, I am sorry, I just hate seeing him like this." Peter sighs.
"All family and friends do, Peter, you really care about him, but let us care about his physical condition at the moment." the nurse explains understandingly.
* * *
The next day, Neal is agitated and the nurse ups the drip, but Neal keeps fighting the restrains, Neal is clearly in distress. Peter goes to find a nurse and she tells him she will send for a doctor to check the amount of sedation. When the doctor comes in, Peter explains that he thinks Neal is distressed because of the restraints and asks if there is any other way they can keep Neal from pulling IV´s or tubes without increasing the sedation. The doctor orders mitts and half an hour later, a nurse comes in with two mitts. Peter looks at them as if they are torture devices, but the nurse explains to him that Neal´s hands will be placed inside the pouches, and because the palm side it padded, Neal will not be able to grab anything as he won´t be able to flex his fingers. She places Neal´s hands in the pouches and fastens them around his wrists and removes the wrists restrains. Neal immediately settles down when he feels he can move his arms freely.
Peter sighs his relief and sits down in the chair the nurses brought into the room, when they noticed when Peter was not going anywhere.
The nurse smiles and tells Peter that Neal is doing well and they soon will start weaning him off the propofol.
The next time Neal wakes a bit, he is again welcomed by noises he doesn´t know, he wants to move and a hand is placed on his arm.
"Hey Neal, take it easy, you are intubated, leave the tube alone." Peter mumbles tiredly.
Neal instinctively puts his hand toward his mouth but there is something on his hand, and he tries to shake it off.
"Neal, listen to me, those are mitts, you can´t take them off, they prevent you pulling on your tubes. Just go back to sleep, I am here when you wake."
Neal is relieved Peter is there and lets himself fall asleep again.
Over the next couple of days, Neal manages to stay awake longer and longer until the doctor thinks it is safe to extubate him. After the unpleasantness of it, Neal is tired and falls almost immediately back to sleep. When he wakes, Peter informs him that they will be removing the NG-tube soon and no to try to talk as his throat needs some time healing. Peter feeds him some ice chips and they feel like they are a gift from the gods. When he is more awake, a nurse comes in to remove the mitts as long as Neal promises to stay away from the NG-tube and IV´s, which he confirms by giving a weak nod. It feels good to flex his fingers, they are stiff from disuse.
He still has a long way of recuperating, but he will get there.