Because of magic, my MC is stuck in a dream and can’t be woken for a period of three days. She spends that time in a hospital—would they be likely to insert breathing tube/feeding tube/etc? How quickly after admitting her? If there’s nothing medically wrong with her, any aggressive things they could try to wake her up? Any likely problems she’d have from being asleep so long?

Hey there nonny. This character is going to get heavily medicalized, and fast. 

Unconsciousness with no obvious cause is a bad thing, and your character is going to wake up in the ICU. She’ll likely have a feeding tube in her nose (NG tube), at least two IVs (even if nothing is running but saline), and a breathing tube and a ventilator, even if she’s breathing fine on her own. 

In this case, she’s been intubated for airway protection, not for respiratory support. But what we get scared of in medicine is that she’ll vomit and aspirate (inhale the vomitus). A breathing tube will help with that. 

She’ll also most likely have a Foley catheter in place (a tube that goes into her urethra to drain her bladder). This isn’t just a way to keep her clean, it also helps monitor her urine output (which in turn monitors her kidneys and her overall perfusion). 

As for how quickly: probably intubated in the ER (if not the field), IVs in the ER, feeding tube and Foley might be once she’s upstairs a few hours after arriving at the hospital. In terms of waking her up, she’d likely be shaken, have her name spoken very loudly, and someone might do a sternal rub or press a pen across her nail bed to try to wake her up. (These are… important, and necessary, but maybe not legal depending on location. I find pen+nail bed works better.) 

She’ll also have gotten CT scans and possibly MRIs. 

Hope this helps! 

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

(Samantha Keel)

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