It's Friday evening now and I'm ready for a good night's sleep if at all possible. The pain-killing infusion was taken out today, as was the thorax tube and the catheter into my spine. I've been given a new pain-killing infusion which I can regulate myself with a push-button gadget. Although quite a few things have now been dismantled, there still seem to be dozens upon dozens of tubes and cables all over the place, all connected to me in one way or another.
Beatrice very kindly paid me a visit this afternoon and she too was amazed at the array of tubes. I had to laugh. Ask Bea to do anything for you and she not only does it immediately but she also does it to the full. She arrived today with a big bag of chewing gum - roughly enough to last me until Christmas 2012...!! Loads of different flavours, so that's brilliant because one of the depressing parts of this whole story is not being able to swallow anything. The only ways to avoid a neutral, drab feeling in your mouth are either to rinse your mouth out with fizzy drinks (like Sinalco fizzy orange or ginger ale) or to chew chewing gum. Bea found a whole load of different flavours for me so I was delighted.
I am allowed to drink 2 dl of liquid a day as from today. It's actually a bit silly because the fluid simply goes down your throat and into the stoma bag; there is nowhere else for it to go until the oesophagus has been replaced. Still, like the chewing gum, it's another little tiny positive contribution to getting well and, as such, is a welcome sign of things moving in the right direction.
I was sitting at the table from 1030 until about 1345 today and it was evidently too much because I've had very painful backache since then. I'm hoping that the new infusion works so that I can sleep tonight.
That's it for today's adventures. More thrilling news tomorrow.
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