Well it's day 13 of our PICU stay and we're really just hanging onto the idea of getting Lyra out sometime in the near future. Lyra is doing okay. She was taken off of the ventilator on Monday, but throughout Tuesday she was working pretty hard to breath on her own, mostly because of a lot of junk in her lungs that she has to work to get out. Tuesday evening they decided to put her on CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure - I think). This allows some air to be blowing directly into her lungs to help her breathe and to expand her lungs more.
The surreal part of PICU existance is that once you get over the initial shock of seeing your baby with all the lines and tubes connected, you start to see that she actually is recovering well from surgery, and you feel better about her being there. However, she's still on pain medication and some sedation, so she is resting comfortably. As she recovers, they begin weaning her off all the medications (and rightly so). What happens to the observer though is that you go from watching a relatively content baby recovering somewhat peacefully to a very angry, annoyed, and confused baby recovering uncomfortably. And there's not a whole lot you can do about it without going backwards in terms of care.
We're doing okay for the most part, but the unknown stuff is starting to get to us. It had appeared early in the week that Lyra was working towards getting out of the PICU, but now we have no idea. Today they're going to be redoing some of her lines because the ones she has now have been in her for 10 days and they're not working they way they should. This means more sedation and time away from her.