Another Side Trip

Saturday Morning - April 2nd

It's easy to take your stomach and bowels for granted. You eat & drink, things go in and out. A few minor inconveniences based on what & how much you put in or illnesses like flu. At least for me, that's the way things have gone ... until earlier this week. Without getting into too much detail, last Tuesday afternoon, I started have stomach pain ... kind of like cramps. I thought I could deal with the pain until Wednesday morning when I was due up at Virginia Mason anyway for a scheduled appointment.

By 9 pm Tuesday, I was headed to the emergency room at Virginia Mason with my daughters, Lauril & Kehlen. We got to I-5 in Olympia, and ended up at emergency room at St Pete's ... the pain was barely controllable. CT scan showed a bowel restriction; OK, let's get it unplugged and I can get on with things. No such luck.

Wednesday morning I found myself in an ambulance headed to VMMC. I got here & had a horde of docs look at me, with more poking, proding and x rays. Four days later, I'm still here trying to get things calmed down enough that the restriction will resolve itself & I'll get back to normal. I've got a tube down my nose into my stomach. It's sucking green stuff out of my stomach (same thing going on in yours, too). I haven't had anything to eat or drink since Tuesday afternoon. I'm getting everything I need by IV.

All the docs assure me that things are improving, so I'll be walking as much as possible and trying to help this blockage resolve itself. The worst case scenario is another round of surgery to correct the blockage. No one wants that, so it's be patient. There's not many places where the most frequent question you're asked is, have you passed gas yet? This is a sure sign that bowels are functioning (see my earlier entry on 'bowel tones').

On the positive side, I have all the tubes out of my abdomen now and things are healing pretty well. I have an impressive scar!