Lyra made it through the surgery without any major problems. The only complication was that they had to do more repair work on the aortic arch than expected. They did try to close her chest, but apparently Lyra wasn't cooperating with that decision, although I don't really know what they meant, medically, by "she wasn't happy with that". So they went back in and opened her chest back up and left it that way until the swelling goes down. This is what happened during her first surgery, so we're used to it... well, as used to it as one could be under the circumstances.
The surgery lasted about twice as long as we thought and although we were not kept very well informed during the procedure, we now know enough of the staff to stop people in the hallways and badger them for information. I found out Lyra was back in the PICU only because I saw her anesthesiologist in the hall and asked how things were going.
So far Lyra has been doing well in the PICU. We did get to see her after she was stabilized and all her medications and support had been set up. I also called a couple times last night and this morning and she's doing fine and they're working on weaning her off of several medications.
Posted by Tim at July 27, 2004 08:34 AM