Laptop was great towards the end of my stay, but didn't get much use before that. We didn't have wireless access, but what I did use it for was to play scrabble with visitors (I had purchased the game from Yahoo Games).

MP3 player with BIG puffy earphones to block out the hospital noise is an awesome idea, as is making sure you have a TV available from Day 1.

Cell phone for texting people is wonderful, and don't forget an extension cord which can handle all these plug ins and their chargers. Who knows where your outlet will be.

Hint: After the last surgery - when they took almost the entire other half of my tonuge, I found that drinking from a bottle make a huge difference once I was relearning swallowing. Seems to shoot the water to the back of your throat and kept me from aspirating it - check that out with your speech pathologist.

One day I was feeling sooooooooo rotten that a good friend of mine just crawled into bed with me. I must say, I still think of that as one of the greatest comforts I had while in hospital. People shouldn't be afraid to do that - crawl into bed with you and watch TV.

I also found magazines were good in that I seemed to have a short attention span. And yes, I agree with your hippie friends- ensure you are pain free but don't get hooked - detoxing from morphine is NO FUN.

You'll get through it, and the next time you think about it will be when someone asks you for hints!!

We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Donna