“Two steps forward, one step back.” is the name of this game. Today has been a “one step back” kind of day. Her belly is showing signs of trying to wake up and with that came a lot of pain overnight and throughout the day today. They did an X-ray and everything looks as it should other than her intestines just being really dilated. Unfortunately the best thing for her is to keep getting up and moving. So that’s what she did today. She took two walks and sat in the chair for a bit. The inflammation in her belly has aggravated a nerve that runs up to the left shoulder so in addition to her belly pain she is struggling with a lot of referred pain in the left shoulder as well. She said it feels like she broke her shoulder. We have gone back up on her pains meds today trying to find the right spot now that she doesn’t have the PCA button and the pain catheters were removed from her back this afternoon. Heart rate and blood pressures have been higher again today but they were looking amazing yesterday so they will go back down again once the pain is better. Her iron levels are pretty low so they plan to do an iron infusion to get them back up. Iron is absorbed through the portion of the intestine they removed during the surgery plus her celiac disease makes her prone to low iron levels. So so so proud of her and all the hard work she’s putting into this. This evening we plan to just rest. Tomorrow is a new day.