To Eat or Not to Eat...that is the question.

It seems we have a little change in the eating plan for Alex. Previously, they were telling us to have Alex take in as many calories/nutrition orally on top of his TPN. Now, the GI doctor wants him to "rest" his bowel, meaning only taking a few bites and drinks of things here and there for taste. Then, they want us to follow up with them in two months to see how his colon looks after an extended time with a limited amount of stuff passing through it. After that assessment, they will determine if Alex should start to add foods slowly back into his diet to see how he tolerates them. The GI doctor says you can often get a very diseased colon (like Alex's) to heal and decrease most, if not all, of the inflammation through the bowel rest. The trick will be keeping it that way when/if he begins to eat again. He did not sound like he was going to change much of his medication, so we will continue with basically the plan that Shawnee Mission's GI doc's set up for us with just a few adjustments. Looks like we will get to do some sight seeing in Cleveland after all!