Allowed to drink again

Shane was really tired and slept a lot today.  His physical therapist came by in the morning and Shane set a new record for walking.  Using the walker, he was able to make it out of his room and down the hall a bit.  He also got his nasal-gastric tube and urinary catheter out today.  Hooray!  Shane's surgeon came to visit twice and noted that Shane is having increasing difficulty breathing.  They said Shane does not have fluid in the lungs (according to his previous x-rays), but it looks like he does have fluid around the lungs, which is called pleural effusion.  This could be the result of having general anesthesia twice in eight days.  If that continues, they will do some diagnostic tests and they may have a thoracic surgeon come and drain some of the fluid out in a fairly low risk procedure that could give Shane a lot of relief.  We also visited with Shane's ostomy nurse who said Shane's ostomy looks like a rose.  She gave us a lesson on ostomy care and told us some eyebrow-raising stories about the things she's seen pop out of people's ostomies, like an entire intact green bean!  She said everyone should chew their food more.  The most exciting development is that after three and half days of eating and drinking nothing other than ice chips, Shane was finally permitted to start a liquid diet.  His first request was iced tea.  Yummmm... caffeine!