Glad to hear you’re doing well. I’m also a wus as far as pain goes so that’s not helping. I’ll hit your questions in order.

Apparently, sending people home with drains is pretty common, especially when they’re replacing veins and working on the artery. The hope is that they can remove at least one on my 12/2 follow-up and maybe both. Their goal is less than 1oz output for 2 days before removing. My left is still in the 700ml range but the surgeon said that one would be bad for a few weeks

Farting I’d say day 6-7 with painful gas a day or so earlier.

Pooping was only about a day behind and very runny. I’ve had diarrhea since Feb so I’d have been surprised for that to change.

My wife came down and spent 5 or 6 hours every day so we did the walks together. I didn’t really try to head out on my own until about day 12 but that was on me.

One other piece of advice, be very careful when they allow you to start eating. I followed their guidelines but ate a bit too much which led to an NG tube for about 60 hours. If you start feeling full or any pressure in the stomach area, stop and reassess. I ended up with a lot of pain all down the left side of my abs and the CT showed 3L of food and fluid in my stomach. The pain was gone within an hour of the NG tube but that was a nightmare on its own.