Operation Garbage Plate Update

For those of you that don't know Operation Garbage Plate is my swallowing recovery program. Last week I had dilation procedure XIII. Unfortunately that one didn’t move things any farther forward but that has happened in the past. The next one is will be in 3 months. As the saying goes “lather, rinse repeat”.

As far as Operation Garbage Plate goes there has been some success from the prior procedure. I think that there is probably at least one item on most menus that I could eat somewhat normally now and depending upon the restaurant there would be several. For example I am now able to eat the delicacy that is known as the McDonald's Double Cheeseburger. And I am comfortable enough to do it in public without fear of someone calling 911 from the antics I sometimes to go through to swallow. Now if break dancing were to make comeback….

I also think I could eat a Garbage Plate now though I won’t get a chance to try until the end of August. For those of you that are not familiar with the the delicacy that is the Garbage Plate here is a video that describes it in all its brilliance. Truly a culinary master piece.



There was one way cool thing about the last procedure. The hospital has upgraded the gowns they use and they now have these places to attach air hoses that you can use to provide warm air. No more blanket warmer for me! The link to the vendor site is : view link This was nifty surprise and made it worth the trip. They also provide you with these matching socks with rubber pads on the feet to make sure you don’t slip. Of course I asked if I could keep the socks as a souvenir. They also gave me pictures of my esophagus as they did the procedure. We are talking a full service operation here in tiny town. Heated gowns, free trip photos and souvenirs to boot. Pun intended. :-) (Yep, don't quit that day job.)

Time to leave the collective

The real update is that today I am going to leave the Borg collective. After about 2 and half years they are going to take the PEG tube out this afternoon. My last MRI came back negative and as we all know negative is good! Big time Yippee! for that. Now I am in the less than 8 % recursion group and haven’t used the thing in well over a year so they are letting me get it yanked. I offered to bring a pry bar to help but they declined. Go figure! Something about lawyers, malpractice and sanitation…

Up to now the primary reason for not removing the tube was they would have problem putting one back in if I needed it. That still holds true today but as my oncologist said if I needed to have it put in again I would have bigger things to worry about. They can still put one in its just via a different method.

Oh... and by the way it's only a rumor that I asked about getting the tube back to use as a modified beer tap. There is no way beer would flow out of it fast enough. Now to pour the hard stuff... that has possibilities.