itchy night

J.J. had a really restless night because he was so itchy. He scratched so much that he took off some of the steri strips over his incision and scratched some of the scab off. He also opened one of the chest tube wounds by scratching and made it bleed a bit. Finally he had a couple of doses of Benadryl and a dose of Chloral Hydrate to help put him to sleep and he had a decent sleep after 3 am. People kept coming in between 6-8 and Billy kept kicking them out. J.J. got up at 10 am.

He's off of his oxygen now almost 2 hrs and seems to be doing great without it! He still has the ng tube in his nose, that might stay until he has fewer oral meds to take. We tried to get him to take the tylenol orally earlier but he refused to eat the tablets and that's only one of the 5 meds he's taking at the moment so we'll leave it in for now.

He's still pretty tired and grumpy. He has started throwing things and getting mad when medical people just come in the room, even the Child Life lady and she's the one who brings the toys!!

We're keeping fairly cool in here, it sounds like everyone else is cooking! They've prescribed an anti-itching medication that we can give J.J. tonight so hopefully that'll help him get a better sleep. We might be able to move to spot checks soon for his 02 which means other than the ng tube he'll be tube/wire-free! He must have had about 25-30 last week! So this is a big improvement! It's definitely getting easier to get around.

There has been talk of maybe going home this weekend, but we'll still take one day at a time!