No more drains!

On Tuesday I went back to the hospital to see the surgeon and was really excited to hear that I'm healing well and could get my drains and stitches out! It tickled a bit, as they pulled the 1 cm diameter tube that was crammed into my neck...and the stitches seemed to take forever, but I'm so happy to have that stuff out of my body.

We went out to a great Lebanese restaurant to celebrate afterwards for one of the few meals that I can eat out right now. The story with my diet right now is that I must eat a low-iodine diet for 2 weeks in preparation for my radioactive iodine treatment beginning on July 14th. Low-iodine basically means no seafood, iodized salt, sea salt, dairy products (except egg whites?!), soy foods, processed foods, or red dye (I think it is #3, but I just decided to limit all of the red dyes I'd normally be eating). The seafood limitations sucks in particular while in Baltimore, but oh well. The lebanese restaurant knows me and can prepare salt-free chicken kababs, grilled veggies, rice, and whole-wheat pita. All in all, it is a really great meal and not that different from what I normally eat, especially since red wine, beer, and coffee are still on my menu!

Ok, the above pictures are me waiting to get the drains pulled (and no, it didn't actually tickle, but it wasn't too bad at all). The below pictures are after getting them pulled. If you're having trouble seeing the pictures, just click on one and it should open another window in your browser.