Only about 50 hours passed between when I first felt the tell-tale signs of a bowel obstruction and when the obstruction had been resolved in a 45-minute laparoscopic procedure. With nothing to eat or drink, and an NG tube relieving pressure during most of that period, it’s hard to imagine that whatever insult my bowels received would have been enough to send me into a month of post-operative discomfort, but that’s what happened.