Slowly, slowly his bowel will start to move

Today dad had a CT scan of his abdomen with contrast which showed that the contrast had moved across his transverse colon. This means that it moved through the stomach and small bowel, but his sigmoid colon is the longest these surgeons have ever seen and they expect it to take awhile before it moves completely through. There is no visible obstruction which is good, his system is just moving very slowly. This explains why he typically can tolerate liquids all morning and then in the afternoon as things start to get backed up he gets sick.
He is currently sitting in bed, chewing gum, awaiting his next scan. He is not allowed to drink anything, but did convince them to let him have one hard candy an hour and swabs for his mouth. He will get another CT scan tonight to make sure the contrast has continued to move. The good news is that there is no obstruction, but that doesn't help speed things up. For now it is just waiting for the stomach/intestine to recover and that takes a long time for someone who has the longest intestine in the world.