New Pope, Some Hope

When I opened my eyes this morning I heard on the news that we might get a new Pope.  Stan said the last time a Pope retired was some 500 years ago. I think that is around the last time I had anything to eat so I guess I did not think it was all that big of a deal. I did have an appointment today so I had to take the Pope news in stride and get on with business.  Stan has quite a few Pope jokes and I suppose I will have to hear some of those again.

Just got back from my appt with Dr. Scholten, my surgeon. He is happy that I am maintaining with the TPN and the gastric tube. He does not know why the bowels have not woke up, so he wants me to have an upper GI with small bowel follow through. This will check if my stomach is working,and emptying in the small intestines, etc. I think he does not know what else to do for me, so he is passing "the problem" on to Dr. Figg who is a colo/rectal specialist to handle me from now on. He says I can try putting something more gentle into my jejunum (sm intestine) like Pediolyte, or Gaterade, basically sugar water if I wanted to, rather than the formula. He said until we get the results of the upper GI, it really doesn't matter if I continue trying the feedings or not. The area around my G tube is very sore ALWAYS and I thought it looked a bit red and infected, but he didn't think so. So I guess, that is one thing I just have to get used to.

The concert Sat. night was wonderful. It featured a Beatles imitation group backed up by the symphony. I was not exactly sure how to handle my TPN feeding that evening because I usually start it around 8pm and it goes to 8am the next morning. We weren't going to be home until around midnight and that was a bit late, so I tried something I had never done, I started it when we left around 6pm and I put it in the backpack and carried that with me the whole night and I don't think anyone knew the difference. Ross did GREAT with his Penny Lane solo, in fact he was acknowledged to stand and was given a very nice applause for his efforts. We were proud.........
It was also kind of fun the hear all the Beatles songs again.  I think I have tried about everything to get better but I have not got down to the medicinal marijuana yet.  I better keep that off of the list but I think it worked for the Beatles cause they sure did write a lot of pretty interesting music.

That is all the news I can think of from this yellow submarine of mine

Deb (with a little help from my friend)