Update: 9/13/25: Today was a different kind of day for Cristin—it wasn’t as positive as many of her other days. Since it’s Saturday, she didn’t have PT or OT. And, as anyone who has spent time in a hospital knows, weekends are pretty quiet—staff are mainly focused on just keeping patients alive until Monday.

The morning started off fine, but around 1 p.m. things shifted. The charge nurse came in (rather abruptly, I might add) and told us Cristin would be moving to the 4th floor and that we should start gathering her things. We had no idea a room change was coming, so this news immediately brought stress. They did say that her orthopedic care team wanted her closer to their floor. Cristin was especially worried, since back in the PACU we were told the 4th floor had “shared” rooms. I reminded her that we’d make the best of it no matter what.

Before we knew it, they whisked her into a wheelchair and took us from her private “penthouse” on the 19th floor down to a much smaller room on the 4th. Curtains separated Cristin (and us) from the other patient and her five visiting family members—who were quite loud. It was instantly clear this wasn’t going to work. Her stress level spiked, and the pain from being moved so quickly only made things worse.

I quickly set off on a mission to see if there was any way to get Cristin into her own room. Thankfully, after some back-and-forth, the staff was able to make it happen. About an hour later, she was wheeled into a private room. So within a few hours we went from The Ritz, to a noisy dorm, to The Holiday Inn—but we’ll gladly take it.  And please don’t take it as complaining, these folks at MSK have been taking wonderful care of her. Today just found us a few bumps in the road. 

We ended the evening on a much brighter note: watching the Dawgs pull off a win, enjoying some delicious Mexican food delivered by Grubhub, and listening as Cristin read her nightly Bible story to sweet Vincent.