<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:BookmanOldStyle">Here's part of Joe's blog post: Went to the VA doctor yesterday morning, and it was all good news. My wounds are recovering well and clinical tests have come out good -- mainly the lack of pancreatic enzymes, indicating the pancreas has healed well. But I also "don't look sick," which means a lot to him. I did look sick a couple of weeks ago.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:BookmanOldStyle">He said it would be possible to schedule the surgery to reattach my ileum and colon as early as March, though he would advise waiting longer. It's a serious operation, and the stronger I am, the smaller probability of complications.
The recovery period will be long. Some patients grow so tired of the ileostomy bag that they want the surgery as soon as possible. It was my decision.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:BookmanOldStyle">Well, the factors going into my decision are complicated. I do not like the ileostomy bag at all, the inconvenience and potential for social disaster. The feeling of being a handicapped cyborg.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:BookmanOldStyle">But March surgery would interfere with both the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts and the Nebula Awards. He suggested July, but we'll be going to Europe then, and the one inflexible date is the Hemingway conference in Lausanne at the beginning of July. August is out because we're going to Australia, and will be going straight to MIT after that. I could have the surgery done in Boston, but it would screw up the teaching schedule. So it looks like next January.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:BookmanOldStyle">By then I will have given the damned bag a name and be drawing funny faces on it. But I would be completely recovered from the current surgery and have an unencumbered recovery period for the next.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:BookmanOldStyle">So it looks like next January, with this April as a possibility if I grow impatient.
But in spite of his optimism I do feel scarily weak, and don't know that five or six weeks will get me up to par. Joe<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="BookmanOldStyle" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 21px;">PS from Gay: He's now off the antibiotics and we're watching for any problems from that. All the travel he mentions is entirely tentative. Right now he couldn't do it and we're taking no chances. He's eating well but not gaining much weight, though the doctor says he isn't undernourished. As far as I'm concerned, no optional surgery until he's completely back to normal.</span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="BookmanOldStyle" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 21px;">Thanks again for all your support and concern. Love, Gay</span></font></p> <!--EndFragment-->
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