Day number 20

So today marks day 20. He still has the ICP monitor in his head but doc said he's gonna take it out tues or wed at the latest. Jackson was not a happy camper yesterday so they did another CT to look at things, but today as been better. He's now having problems going #2, they think its from all the meds, they can back you up. He gets really ill when he's trying to go. The pressure from him pushing actually can increase the pressure in his brain since the shunt tubing empties out into your abdomen. (There's always something) By looking at the scan from yesterday and watching the pressures the last couple days the doc thinks all is going good with his shunt, pressures, brain, skull, etc. but Jackson is still not quite himself. We are giving him some laxatives so maybe this may help, we hope so, he keeps complaining that his tummy hurts and actually cries when he tries to push. We are also trying not to give him any pain meds (morphine or lortabs) since it just knocks him out and makes him want to lay around. He has become very gunshy of people since our stay. I can't blame him, all the new people he sees in here do bad things to him. We are hoping that once we get this monitor taken out of his head, let the laxatives kick in and get some of these wires off we can get him out of this room for a while and into the playroom. After all he's been laying on his back for 20 days now. Maybe getting up and about will cheer him up.