We arrived at the hospital today at around 11:30 am only to find they were only just moving Steffanie out of the NCCU to a room in In-Patient Recovery two floors up. From the time we got there until about 1:30, it was mostly spent getting her reconfigured in her room. It took quite a while for the nurses to find an air pump for her ankle inflaters. I don't have any idea what they are actually called - but basically they are inflatable plastic devices that go around her ankles and are hooked up via air-tubes to an air pump. This pump squeezes air into them to keep her blood flowing in her legs to prevent blood clots. I prefer the name ankle inflaters. It took practically all afternoon for the nurses to find her a pump, determine this one didn't work, and then find another pump. Despite the fact that she arrived in her room at 11:30 am, she didn't actually receive a working pump that was able to run and keep running until around 4:30 pm. Sigh. They brought her some food at around 1:30 or so and she was able to eat a few bites of some pretty bad sloppy joe (just the meat with a spoon), a few bites of broccoli, and 1/4 of a cookie. She also drank about 1/2 pint of milk which impressed me. This was the first bit of food that she had eaten since Sunday night. As the day wore on, she was gradually able to eat some fruit we had gotten her from the cafeteria, drink quite a bit of water (four or five 12oz cups) and some juice. She was also able to eat some yogurt and eventually with dinner, some pasta & other things. Later in the afternoon she was able to walk, with assistance, and very slowly, to the bathroom. Earlier in the afternoon she was able to sit on the side of the bed for just a few minutes and then stand with our help for just a minute or so. I took my parents with me back to our apartment at around 7:45 pm this evening. Since she is in her own room now and not in the NCCU, her Mom is staying overnight with her tonight as I have to be here at our apartment tomorrow morning (Wednesday) to let some folks in who need to get in. Once done, I'll head back up with my Mom. Dad is going to stay here tomorrow as he's been spending most of his time sitting in very cheap/uncomfortable chairs in waiting rooms for 2 days. He gets to cat-sit tomorrow. By tomorrow night, after a full day with Mr. D and Ms. S, he may need to take Steff's place. At around 4:00 or 5:00 pm today, Steff began asking for her phone and had the strength (and willpower/interest) to hold it up and begin doing things like checking her email or twitter - her first time in doing so Since early Monday morning, pre-surgery. Monday and earlier Tuesday I had been relaying messages to her or holding it up for her to read. She would check her phone for just a minute or so at a time because she was still experiencing quite a bit of pain most of today. By this evening she was beginning to use it more and more. Today's goal was to try to sit up or stand up gradually more and more, and to eat some food. This purpose of the food was so they could remove the pain-med drip & IV and switch her over to oral pain meds (Oxycontyn - I probably misspelled that but I don't feel like looking it up. If you care about silly things like that please consult Rush Limbaugh for proper spelling[hello Republican family members ☺ ]). Once I got home tonight, unpacking the car, helping my parents unpack their truck, and cooking some food, I got a text from Steffanie. She had managed to walk to the bathroom on her own (with her Mom & nurses very close by to make sure she kept her balance) but did so successfully. She called me and spoke on speakerphone. I could tell that her voice was louder (less weak) and that she felt better than when we had left her at 7:45. Her Mom thought that, with the state she was in by this time, that it's a good chance she'll get to come home tomorrow. We'll see I guess. I'm not getting my hopes up because it seems her state of pain/mood has ebbed and flowed somewhat from time to time. I'll feel better once I see her tomorrow morning if she sounds even better than she did tonight. Side note that I forgot to mention yesterday: If you have a Cat that likes to jump on the kitchen counter, then the top of the fridge, then to the top of the kitchen cabinets - make sure you do not use the top of your fridge to store all of the carry-out restaurant menus in your neighborhood. Piles of paper such as this may cause the cat to slide a small bit when jumping down from the cabinets which, in some circumstances, cause him to kick the freezer door open on your fridge....like Mr. D must have done sometime on Sunday or Monday, because when my Dad and I returned home last night the freezer door was wide open and all the food inside was room temperature. The good news? Our freezer is now clean! Great! I had been meaning to clean it out for a while. The bad news? I made the quickest Trader Joe's run in the recorded history of man-kind when I pulled up tonight at 8:55 pm to their store (hint: they close at 9:00). Bad Mr. Darcy. In short - Steff seems a lot better today, despite the problems we had at times today getting things she needed (there are other stories besides the air pump which I don't feel like going in to, but suffice it to say we miss Marlon, her nurse from yesterday, from the NCCU). The only problem is that she's still been in a lot of pain from time to time but I guess that's normal when they make a 4 inch cut into you head, remove part of your skull and back bone and then sew you back up. Still though, she's getting back to normal. We'll see how tomorrow progresses. Will post more updates tomorrow.