I'm stealing titles now.

Sitting in the CDU (Clinical Decision Unit) at the major hospital that I had my surgeries at. I think I was supposed to be here just a few hours and then sent up to the GI floor, but while I have orders to move, I don't have a room yet. 

Apparently what happened was my small intestine found a way to put a knot in itself or something, making it so nothing was moving through my GI tract. Monday night it started sending things back up. There are a couple ways to fix this. The most drastic is to go in surgically and untangle things, but they didn't really want to cut me open again. So we start with an NG tube (Nasal-gastric tube - in the nose down to the stomach) to pull off pressure from the bowels to see if they can sort things out on their own.

The stomach likes to keep making acid and other stuff and sending it down your GI track, even when you're not eating. When my intestines got all tangled up, they stopped being able to take this, but also didn't have anywhere to send it. So pain, nausea, vomiting. The NG tube is to drain that stomach produce off and let the intestines relax, hopefully letting the snarl uncurl, at which point stuff starts flowing.

Yesterday, at noon, they fed me a bunch of contrast for an xray to take later that day to make sure it was moving. If at 8 to 24 hours after taking the contrast, it's in my colon, then the blockage has sorted itself out, and I can get the tube pulled. I got my xray at 9pm last night, and it showed contrast well into my colon. (And the amount of pooping I had done confirmed this, the contrast apparently also works as a laxative.) They couldn't pull my tube last night, because the docs had all gone home. (The surgeon's office apparently was pushing for a much earlier time to take the meds and do the scan, so they could maybe pull the tube yesterday, but that didn't happen.) 

As of now, I had my tube pulled this morning, kept some water down, and have kept a simple breakfast down as well. I'm still hungry but trying to take it slow so I don't over excite things. Apparently, this might just be something I have to deal with on occasion. Post-surgery, there's some scar tissue in my abdomen that might make my small intestine snarl up and get confused like this.

It's irritating. (NG tubes are not fun. Not the worst thing ever, but still, not fun.) One more way my body can get confused and mess things up for me, however I think I've handled this one better than the last upending I had. (It's not as severe, but still.) More things I have to be willing to let go of.

Thanks to all for the thoughts, prayers, and help around all this.