Post surgery, Wednesday / Thursday

Hey all!
Steven is doing great. When he rolled back in from the operating room he was pretty dazed and doped up but now he is awake and able to tell us how he is feeling. i asked him this morning how he was doing and he frowned a bit but then Aunt Paula told me to remind him of day one and he decided to change that frown to a content half smile. then i asked him how he slept and he said not so good and then i told him "well, when i asked you earlier this morning you said you slept fine, so which is it SK?" and he kind of laughed and said "okay okay i slept okay."
after they cleaned all that crap out of his neck tissue his fever was at 98.7. WOW! But now it has gone just slightly up but still staying in the 99-100 range which is still quite impressive. his body will be fighting back and repairing itself in no time.
he has the sweetest nurse taking care of him....except the nurse told him he could start having little bits of ice and man oh man when Steven heard that he has been having me on my feet all day giving him ice. I try to tell him "you cant have too much" but he just ignores me. haha. today i was standing by his bed just holding his hand and he goes "what are you doing?" and i said "oh, just hangin out, what are you doing?" and he said "oh, just hanging out too" .....haha!
as far as pain goes i think he is just mostly uncomfortable because he has tubes coming out everywhere. on a scale of one to ten he said pain is a six.  but they aren't stingy with the pain meds. that's for sure.
Big news! the physical therapists came by and had him sit up on the edge of the bed! the only other time he did this was when in the middle of the night he had to use the bathroom. i had fallen asleep and woke up to the nurse saying "oh gosh oh gosh!" and opened my eyes and saw my dad sitting on the edge of his bed, about to try and stand! he had pulled out all his tubes and freed himself completely of everything! he was on a mission. but luckily the nurse walked in just in time and we told him that was a very bad idea. i told him he has to let go just a little of his rebel tendency. but he got the chance to sit up and move around today when the PT's came in. he did really well! as you all know Steven goes above and beyond in most that he does so he really impressed the physical therapists with his endurance and fortitude. but afterwords he fell asleep...it took a lot of energy and his body is doing a miraculous job of fighting the infections off so sleeping is good.
all is well, this is a huge turning point in his condition! y'alls good thoughts and prayers are a huge help and im so grateful for all of y'alls love and support for him.