Calm me down
He woke up two hours ago with needles in his arms and a tube that went into his nose and down his throat. Essentially his worst nightmare.
The thought of the tube alone had caused him to gag and, after almost throwing up whatever liquid was weighting his stomach down, the dye-blonde nurse with the dark, thin brows and frown lines had agreed to remove it. He puked his guts out anyway, rid of things that he didn’t even remember consuming, and shook and cried about it once the woman left again. He’d asked to hold her hand initially, and she’d chucked, said something about how much medication he was on.
Now, he still has needles in his arms and, although small band aids cover the place where they prick his skin, his whole body still tenses when he catches sight of them. But then, his muscles have been contracting to their own accord since he had awoken anyway, so perhaps he’s merely on high-alert. Right now he’s trying to breathe slow enough for his ribs to stop hurting, but not so slow that he becomes short of breath again.
The doctor had said that his breathing is a major concern. One of many.
His heart rate is also irregular, he was told, meaning his blood pressure is low and... Well, Spencer still doesn't remember the seizure, but the doctor insists that it happened.
People saw too, and that’s the worst part.
He’d asked for a glass of water but it still remains where it was placed at his bedside forty minutes ago. The bottom of the glass looks cloudy, so he’s not sure he trusts it.
He's stuck laying on his back, so he can't actually drink it anyway, his body covered by a thin, white sheet, with his arms out and resting along his sides. The metronome in the corner is meant to keep him calm, but the only thing it's really achieving is making him want to recover faster. So he can get up and throw it through the nearest window.
Spencer’s beginning to feel more like himself, although he wishes that his hands would stop going numb, and his torso would lose feeling instead. The left side of his face, too. His jaw aches in a way that’s more tedious than anything, but his head doesn't anymore - it's too...
He frowns, mentally digging around for the word.
"Swimmy," he repeats, chuckling at the word.
"Excuse me?"
Spencer turns his head, his eyes meeting the nurse's, who is stood at the door.
"You are excused," the man replies, still smiling lazily at the strange word. The nurse just rolls her eyes but doesn't leave, instead taking a seat beside the door.
Osteoporosis lead to two broken ribs and a fractured collarbone. Low blood sugar was the original reason for the way he’d tend to uncontrollably tremble, but now it was just the nausea making him nervous. The nausea came from too little food and too much medication, but that’s what the tube was meant to fix. Of course now the staff are looking for a new solution.
"Mister Quinn, considering your refusal of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, w--"
"The what?" Spencer cuts in, watching the nurse as she stands from her seat beside the door and speaks with her head down, where she holds a small collection of papers. She huffs, irritated, before continuing.
"-- We'll have to re-position you, which we didn't necessarily want to do until tomorrow evening, and you'll be eating as you usually would. Another nurse will b-"
"Actually, I-"
"Will be arriving shortly," the woman scowled, growing frustrated. "and we'll assist--"
"Have you seen my file? Why are you acting like-- Like you actually believe that's going to happen? I'm not-"
"Spencer--"
"Mister Quinn," he intervenes, feeling smug among his frustration.
"You're giving us very few options." She finally manages to complete a sentence, giving up on what she originally wished to say.
He observes the ceiling as the woman rambles on, pulling an expression of distaste at the yellow stain, a few inches to the left of being right above him. His arm twitches, ready to drag his palm over his face tiredly, but the tiniest movement once again makes him aware of the needle in his arm, and he decides it isn't worth it.
"I'll return with another nurse shortly who, I assume, will have your supper."
"Supper?" His eyes stayed glued to the ceiling, now tired of having to strain his neck to see the woman. "What time is it? How long have I--"
He hears the door close and it's enough for him to know he's alone again.
