Wednesday Update For Ben

Normally what I'm about to say would be a bad thing and something we would not want but I am so happy to tell everyone…..

THEY FOUND A BLOCKAGE IN BEN'S COLON!

Ben opened his eyes and gave me a little wave when I came into his room this morning. Neelima (his nurse) said she was waiting for Radiology to send someone to take Ben downstairs to do a special type of enema. I'll refer to it as a "power washer enema" because she told me that it's like sticking a power washer up your colon and inserting liquids with special medications to try to remove any fecal blockage that might be there. I asked Ben if Dr. Manek had been in to tell him that because the sigmoidoscope would not go more than 10 cm into his colon that they were now really thinking there had to be some kind of blockage. Ben said that the doctor had told him. Ben was happy that I had returned his empty beer keg and gotten his $30 deposit back. Around 11:20 AM, they came and took Ben down to Radiology. He was gone for over an hour. When he came back, his brother Lanny had gotten there to see him. Lanny went out and found Dr. Manek to talk with him. The doctor said he would be in Ben's room in a few minutes to tell us what they found. When he got there, he told us that he had just looked at the images they took last night and this morning and that he could clearly see some kind of blockage in the lower intestines. He said that the intestines were dilated, then he saw a "pinched off" part and then another dilated part, so the pinched off part is where the blockage is. He said he was already on the phone with Dr. Rupp the surgeon and she was very surprised to hear that they had found something. So Dr. Manek is now working with her and the Dr. Zweiban (GI doctor) to decided exactly what they are going to do. We also found out that we will have Dr. Manek on Ben's case for one more day, so that helps. Dr. Manek is very optimistic and says that he is so glad that it is no longer a mystery as to why Ben stomach is still bloated. He told Lanny (Ben's brother) that Ben should be in the medical books for this because it is very unusual. Ben said "why didn't they start at that end in the first place?". They are probably going to do more procedures tomorrow to get more images to find exactly where the blockage is and they probably do surgery to go in and fix it. Dr. Manek said he does not think Ben should have a problem with surgery because he is now off of the ventilator and his vitals are excellent. Dr. Manek has truly been a God Send. If not for him being so aggressive, the other doctors would still be "waiting for Ben's body to heal itself" and he probably would have gotten worse and eventually die. THANK YOU GOD FOR DR. MANEK AND FOR HELPING HIM FIND THIS BLOCKAGE.