And now, back to "Ironic Hospital" ....

Trish still has the stomach tube to deliver supplementary nutrition, but other than that, she's tube free, and much more mobile.
Hospital irony: The antibiotics and saline solutions that Trish was getting intravenously have been discontinued. All that was left was the IV "tap" in her left arm, so that they could connect the morphine drip if she was in pain.... but the ONLY pain she was feeling was from the IV tap in her arm that was left in in order to connect the .... well, you get the idea. Apparently this afternoon, after I left the hospital, she finally convinced someone of the vicious circularity of this circumstance, and the IV tap was removed. She's feeling much better.
Trish has been drinking juice, water and broth, and all the necessary bodily functions have been kicking in .... so .... knock on wood .... there's hope she'll be heading home in a few days. (She needs to graduate to solid food first).
Another hospital irony: Her new, post-op, dietary guidelines stress a sugar-free (or sugar reduced) diet ... with specific warnings about fruit juices, which have high concentrations of sugar .... so, of course, the first thing they give her to drink is APPLE JUICE.... and the "shake" that she's given, via the tube, has tons of sugar. All involved seem untroubled by this conundrum. (Today, she also had a big glass of warm salt water masquerading as "chicken broth". But this was scrounged up for her by a sympathetic nurse when the cafeteria was closed ... so she felt compelled to drink a little. I suspect it was one of those vile packages of powder that you add hot water to). The sugar thing isn't a catastrophic danger, as it doesn't undo anything that has been done. But, apparently, in her new, smaller stomach, sugar gets into the intestines before it's been fully processed, so the body (I think I'm getting this right) sends water to the intestines, possibly causing light-headedness and intestinal distress. The severity of this effect varies with individuals, so Trish will have to experiment.
Hopefully, when Willie came he could find some less salty broth in the cafeteria. But chances are, that was a tad salty too. It's every comedians joke, but it's still true that hospitals haven't yet figured out the healthy food thing.
Let's see....what else? As I said before, Trish had an X-ray yesterday to test the the "leak-proofness" of the new esophagus/stomach configuration, and though they gave her the green-light to start drinking liquids, there was a "shadowy spot" that caused some concern. So, today she had a CT scan to get a more precise look, and it turned out to be an anomaly caused by the way her esophagus rested on her stomach... or something. The upshot is that everything is great in that department. But, of course, in order to register the image, she needed to drink a large glass of "contrasting" liquid .... while still being under the proscription to not drink more than a couple of ounces in an hour. The CT scan was postponed for three hours while they worked that one out.... but she ended up drinking that AWFUL (I've been there) viscous, "spit-like" liquid, to no ill effect. And, as I said, the pictures looked good.
Several other humorous things occurred, but I'll let Trish write about them when she's back at the keyboard.
Which, hopefully, will be soon.
I'll keep you posted.