What's power steering?

I lost the whole rod, the only thing left was the eyelet closest to the passengers side. I heard it as it went out the back. I was on a road trip when it relieved itself of its duties. I was glad I had a 1 inch smaller belt on it, even if I didn't have the low side on the compressor or hadn't swapped to 134, it came in handy.
The short term fix included cat 5 ethernet cable, I left it that way for a good month or so.