On to bigger and better things

Today I was allowed to eat pudding, yogurt and a protein shake! In total I managed to eat one jello, 1/2 a pudding and an apple juice. Unfortunately I feel like I am going to explode because after not eating for five days my stomach is so small. Luckily I am not in much pain from eating; mostly just discomfort. I have to be careful not to eat too much too quickly. One of the members of the Donner Party died after he had been rescued because he ate too much after starving for so long. That won't happen to me!

They removed me from my IV pole so now I can move around much more freely. I have already lost some water weight from not being not IV fluids- I'm down to 102 pounds - but I have thought up 100000 meals I want to eat when I get out of the hospital, so I shouldn't have too much trouble gaining some weight back. Just think, I haven't had ketchup for two years.

The verdict on what got me into this mess is that my J-pouch was distended (we knew that, thanks anyway), which caused my upper intestine to "fall asleep" and swell up so that nothing could get through. That created severe pain and everything that went down had to come back up, which caused the ridiculous vomiting that made me want to die. Thankfully my J-pouch has since learned how to hold fluid and not be distended, so hopefully with the latest doses of steroids inflammation will not return. The J-pouch tissue starts to behave more like tissue you would find in the original lower intestine, which is how it "learns." That's really amazing, but of course it will never be like my lower intestine, which is long gone to pathology heaven at UCSF (good riddance!).

A hospital volunteer came around and made my day. She gave me a sudoku book, a Time magazine issue about FBI Director Bob Mueller (whom I happen to be reading about in Obama's Wars), chapstick, floss, hand sanitizer and a comb! If all goes well I will be released from the hospital tomorrow or Saturday.

What would Mueller do if his J-pouch was distended?