Post-op: Day 5

How am I doing? Wrong person to ask. I'm just the patient here, with no frame of reference as to what's good or bad, aside from the fact that I hurt less than I did yesterday. And that was less than the day before. 
Still, in many ways, I can tell I'm making good progress on that road to recovery. One milestone -- passing gas. Hooray! My lower intestines are working. That was Friday afternoon. Another marker -- eating food, which off limits until I got gassy. Up to then, all I could do was wet my mouth by dipping a sponge on a stick into a glass of water. But now that I can eat, I'm not really hungry. So far I'm just doing soup, yogurt, apple juice and gelatin.
Ask Dr. Guru and his associates and they say I'm ahead of schedule. They say the surgery went well. They say I'm healing nicely (although the right side of my abdomen still kind of burns when I get up from bed or from my chair). And I'm ambulatory. I walk laps around the ward -- 6-East, the intermediate intensive care unit at Roswell Park Cancer Institute -- and I've gone down to the ground floor (by elevator) and out to the garden. Today, however, is the first time I've felt clear-headed enough to write.
Meanwhile, no problems with the urinary arrangement, although it seems very strange not have used a toilet since the surgery. Problem area instead has been the line draining a reddish Hawaiian-punch-like fluid from my abdomen. On Friday, a leak developed around the incision. The nurses finally resolved it by altering a stoma patch, like they use for the urinary opening, Right now, I'm dry.
Monday it's off to a regular ward -- 7-West -- where they won't be checking my vital signs so frequently. Nevertheless, the nurses and health care associates here on 6-East, which is nearly vacant at the moment, have been supportive and attentive, although even they have had trouble finding veins on me for drawing blood. Still, I have no complaints. When can I go home? Maybe as soon as Wednesday. It all depends on how soon they can remove that drain from my abdomen.