12/25/04 - Just catching up on the events to date - Part 9

12/10/04 - Day After My Surgery I spent the early part of the day waiting for the times Rodney could come and visit me. I was counting the minutes until he got there! I had to go for my swallow test in the morning. That was an unpleasant experience. The liquid I had to swallow for the test was foul, but at the same time it was nice to get to swallow something. After the test I was able to start on an all liquid diet. I had Gatorade and found that too strong so I diluted it with water.

I found that went down pretty easily. I was finally moved to a room around 4:00pm. I was really becoming resigned to the fact that I might have to stay in the recovery room until I was discharged, so it was a surprise that I actually got a room. I was told by one of the nurses in the recovery that my experience wasn't uncommon, they often didn't have rooms for the patients. It was nice to get to my room and relax. Rodney, my parents and James came up to see me in the room. We went down to the visitor's lounge for a while, but I didn't last too long before I needed to get back to bed. My parents and James left and Rodney stayed as long as he could. I was thankful to have my iPod that night. My roommate had her tv on most of the time. I was able to put my iPod on and tune out the tv and hospital noises. After not getting much sleep the night before, it was nice to be able to get some sleep.