A very tiring day

When we first got to the hospital, Randy was nicely asleep. Then they took off his cast and that was it for the resting today.

He spent the day being upset that he was restrained. He kept asking us to take the hand restraint off. Last night, he actually got out of it enough that he pulled his feeding tube stuff down ~ not the side of it that is inserted into his stomach, but the other side, the side with the actual food. Here in the picture, you can see what he spends most of his day doing ~ trying to take the glove off. During that times that his glove was off, we had to have someone at his hand because he can turn his body enough to reach just about anything he wants. We ended up having to put a different type of restraint on him and we had to restrain opposite hand and leg (right hand and left leg) to keep him safe. At one point today, the nurse gave him the oxy stuff and it calmed him for a few minutes and then he was at it again. He was so frustrated. I asked him how he was doing today and he responded "crappy". When I asked him why he mumbled something about wanting "this" off and he tugged on his hand restraint. He asked his mom to take it off at one point during the day and when she wouldn't he said very clearly "Could you please leave". Another time, after struggling for awhile to try to get the arm restraint off, he said "I wish this could be easier".

One of his favorite words currently is "shush". He seems to say it quite often to his mother and I. He has even said it in full sentence ~ "I wish you would shush".

Because he is so agitated, they are upping his relaxation medicine. They upped the dosage yesterday and today, the nurse kept telling the doctor that something more was needed. The doctor kept not really responding to her, so she made him come into the room and view how agitated Randy was even after the oxy stuff. So, they will give him the medication three times a day instead of just two. We will watch it closely the next day or so to make sure that it isn't making him sleep the whole time. We want him to have awake moments so he can continue to work on coming back to us and show us what progress he is making, but we don't want him to overly frustrated either.

During one point today, a little bit after the oxy and when it was just he and I in the room, I started asking him questions. He was able to tell me his name, my name, and when I asked him what his daughter's name was, he said Cass, which is what he and I call her. I asked him what year it was and he answered 2006, but then when I asked him how old he was, he said 27.

One bit of good news, Randy's white count is normal. It has been high for so long with the injury and then there were a few days it was too low and they ran a bunch of tests to see what was causing that, but all tests came out with negative results and his white count returned to normal.

Tonight, since they had given Randy more of the relaxation medicine, we took and early night and unfortunately missed Doug's visit. But, as you can see by his comment, he got to meet Becky, our favorite nurse (though Tim is definitely one of our top people as well). Becky has just been absolutely amazing to us and has provided Randy with such great care. She does so much for us and for Randy. She even spoke up very loud and clear when the restraint specialist came to visit Randy today. She made sure to speak out on everything he has done even while restrained. The restraint specialist decided it was best to keep Randy restrained for awhile.

I think that is it for updates tonight.