I see that I left that last update on kind of a cliffhanger note, sorry about that.
Lyra is doing fine, not happy, but at least medically she's doing okay. The pneumotosis/infection scare we had last week is about 90% rectified. Lyra has been getting daily x-rays of her belly and they're finally back to normal enough that they don't need to take them any longer. I'd like to think that we're completely out of the woods on that, but I don't take much for granted any more. She's been on "gut rest" for a week now and new information from the docs indicate that they want to go another week.
The IV nutrition that Lyra is getting is actually doing it's job and Lyra is gaining some weight, but her temperment is extremely variable. In the mornings there are times when she's awake for a couple of hours and is relatively calm and even smiley every once in a while, but there are also times at night when she's upset and nothing seems to console her. Eventually she tires out and sleeps a bit, only to wake up and be upset again. As one might imagine, Maren and I don't get much sleep on the nights we stay at the hospital. We think they may decide to go back up a bit on her sedatives (they had been weaning her off of them) and see if that has any effect. Various nurses and docs say that the IV nutrition, called TPN, will assuage her feelings of hunger, but we're not really buying it. Maren definately feels that the kind of crying she hears is the same kind of crying Lyra does when she's hungry. We keep telling ourselves we just have to hang in there for a little bit longer, but it's starting to get aggrivating when "a little bit longer" seems to keep turning from days into weeks.
Posted by Tim at August 23, 2004 01:25 PM