Stupid me didn't listen to my body or the voice of reason (aka "The Darling Bride"). I overexerted myself: which is bad enough as it is and catastrophic for someone who, like me, has abdominal mesh from a ventral hernia repair. The adhesions binding my small intestines to the mesh are really ill-tempered little things, so the slightest overexertion (trying to lift too much, twist too hard, one rarely knows the reason) is likely to twist my gut into a knot and kink up the plumbing.
The ONLY way to unkink things is to spend several days in the hospital, with an NG tube up the nose & down the throat, and gentle suction to (a) extract what's in there and (b) apply a slight negative pressure to coax the knot to unkink... PAIN gurgle gurgle and then on to the next knot. Over and over. After three days of this (which is a new speed record for me), the surgeon ordered the tube clamped for 4 hours. If very little fluid came out afterward, the obstruction was cleared and things were moving downstream toward the exit as normal. Thankfully, that happened and he ordered the tube removed. The nurse gave me the honor of pulling it myself: which I did, after kissing the part in front of my face and telling it that, while I despised it, I thank the Lord for it because it saved my life.
After holding down clear liquids at breakfast, I was moved straight to a full unrestricted diet for lunch. If my stomach could tolerate it and hold it down, they'd consider the treatment a success and discharge me within a couple of hours: which they did, yesterday afternoon. I came home, took all my normal meds & supplements, took a Lunesta sleep pill and slept for 12 hours straight: and no one woke me up to check my vitals, change an IV, or give me medication!
