<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">From Gay:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Joe wrote a
bit about his experience, below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>He’s actually feeling better and the doc thinks he’ll be even
better tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’ll see. Still no food or water, ugh.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">From Joe: I had Gay bring this computer to the hospital, so I
could write a couple of lines.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">Not so much pain, as such, but new vistas in discomfort and
inconvenience. Having your life completely defined and delimited by
bladder and bowels – without even the compensation of food and drink. I
can sometimes suck on an ice cube, but not to excess (seriously!) and get all
my water intravenously. All at the sufferance of long-suffering nurses. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">The problem is an ileus. It’s a digestive
Catch-22. I’m not taking in any solid food, but the problem won’t be
resolved until there is some solid waste. The stomach keeps producing
secretions, which are sucked up through my nose tube. The suction has to
stop periodically so medicine can be taken orally, and when it stops I bloat up
like a tick. (Never thought I’d come to prefer injections over
pills!) Ultimately enough solid waste will appear as a byproduct of
this activity, so we can move on to Step n-1, which is a diet of clear liquids
and gels.. Step n is Food, after which I Step out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">Tree pollen season has started, so the situation is made more
interesting by the nose tube being a pollen nexus, so my head is a mass of
unreachable itches.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">It just don’t get much better than this.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">No actual writing and no high-octane reading, either. Brain is
too drug –fuzzy. Short-term memory shot and reasoning pretty basic.
Like, I can follow Sopranos but find Gorky Park a real challenge. Gay
brings me watercolor and astronomy magazines, so I can pretend to have a life
in those directions. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">Shouldn’t complain. But I can whine.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">Joe<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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