That's excellent news that he's home so quickly and I'm so glad that you didn't have to come home with the trache still inserted. I guess that must mean that the flap donor site and skin graft source site are healing nicely as well. I still hate to think about how many gauze pads and rolls of nonstick tape I used while my wrist healed. People kept asking me to show them my tattoo, haha.

I can't really comment on the morphine issue because I didn't have that much pain & didn't need it at all after the first three days. After that, all I needed was an occasionaly tylenol. Hopefully the pain subsides and he can cut off the heavy drugs soon.

Did they start feeding him (conventionally) in the hospital at all? Before they let me go home, they made sure I was able to feed myself, and showed me how to place food over the hump of my tongue, eat smaller bites than what I was accustomed to, and swallow. After I proved I could eat enough calories this way, they removed the NG tube.

Not sure about the stitch anchoring his tongue down. It's probably just a function of where the incisions had to be made in his particular case, and support was needed in that particular spot. Once it has time to heal, I suspect he'll be able to get it removed. Something to ask about on Friday. Maybe they'll even pop it out then.

He's been through a pretty serious surgery, a helluva scare and now he's doing better than perhaps he imagined. The healing is happening and he's already proven that he can speak a little. This should lift his spirits and accelerate the improvement. As the spot where the trache was heals a bit more, he won't have to be so careful supporting it with his fingers. There may be a bit of weird vibration that is happening when he tries to speak, but it will start to feel more normal soon. Speech clarity will vary from day to day. It still does in my case, about one year post surgery. But he should be improving significantly in the next few weeks.