Lyra is finally sleeping. Really sleeping. Before Saturday she would try to close her eyes, but they'd always open back up. I don't think Maren or I had seen her sleep more than about an hour in almost a week. On at least one occasion she was so uncomfortable and unable to sleep, they sedated her.
Friday was a hard day, probably more for us than Lyra. The problem revolved around IVs and drawing blood for labwork. At this point Lyra has almost no usable veins from which to draw blood or to get an IV installed. Later in the day they tried twice to draw blood for labs, neither of which worked. Then her last IV fell out and they felt they needed to get one in, so they called and asked if we would be okay with one in her scalp. Needless to say, we weren't very happy about the situation. After being reassured that it was necessary for her safety, we allowed one attempt and they got it on the first try. The ironic thing is that after all the discussion, Lyra knocked it out about 6 hours later and they decided not to put any more in.
Since that Friday evening, she's also been taken off oxygen and air flow, so she's breathing normally and sleeping soundly. I think she slept most of yesterday, so maybe today we'll get some awake and non-grumpy Lyra time. But if she needs to keep sleeping, that's fine with me. I'd sleep for a week if I went through what she's had to endure.
We may also move to the pediatric floor today. It will depend on whether there is room out there for us. Currently they're not letting Maren breastfeed just yet, so it's not really critical for us to get out of the PICU, at least not now that Lyra is more comfortable.