Finally, good news to report!

Rejoice, gentle readers, for I am feeling BETTER. Of course, that was prefaced by me feeling abominably worse, but hey, I'll take it.

So, last time I posted I was on the toast-only diet due to some unexpected vomiting. Well, despite my best toasting efforts, the vomiting continued until last Monday, at which point I'd lost 7 lbs in two weeks, I wasn't really eating anything, and my doctor was like, "Get thee to a hospital!" It turns out that the walls of my intestines were so swollen, it was starting to block the pathway where the food is supposed to go. So I spent the night in the hospital, they pumped me full of fluids, started me on steroids, and gave me my first infusion treatment of the immunosuppressant that will hopefully put the Crohn's in remission.

And seriously, people, it's like a miraculous recovery. On Thursday, I was still on a liquid diet; by Saturday, I was eating crab linguini alfredo and Caesar salad (OMG I have missed salad). It's all because of the steroids - they're like a fire extinguisher, a quick blast to get rid of the inflammation really fast - but they only treat the symptoms, not the Crohn's itself, so of course as soon as I stop taking the steroids, all the pain and discomfort would come back. The plan is to stay on the steroids until the other meds have a chance to work.

I'm already kind of feeling the side effects of the steroids (I have a lot of trouble falling asleep at night, and I'm hungry ALL the time), but I can actually eat food, so for the moment, I'm like, "Steroids are the most awesome drug EVER." I started cooking this weekend - I've been watching the Food Network a lot (vicarious eating, yo) and feeling like I wanted to learn how to cook better, but there's not much point in cooking when all you can eat is toast. But now that I'm feeling better, I bought myself a cookbook and plan to start making meals for myself more often. I did a pecan-crusted apricot chicken for my parents (who came to stay with me when I went in the hospital, and just left yesterday), and made potato-leek soup and pasta salad with snap peas and squash (the leftovers of which I will be eating all this week), and it was all very tasty.

I'm still taking 13 pills a day, and there are still some foods I can't eat (anything greasy, spicy, or high in fiber), but compared to the last six months, this is like FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!

Not dead yet

Though I'm starting to think it might be preferable to the alternative.

I am, as should come as no surprise, still f'ing sick. Worse, even, if the pukefest yesterday is any indication. Back on the toast-only diet. Am now reaching the point where losing more weight would no longer be seen as "the bright side."

I went to the doctor last week, and we're changing my medicine yet again. The new drug will require me to go in every few weeks for 2 hours to get medicine via IV rather than taking pills. If it works, I should see results in 1-2 weeks, which would be lovely, but I have to wait for pre-approval from my insurance before I can start treatments.

In other news, I went to my parents' house for Christmas, and we had our entire family over for Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas Day we went to my cousin's fiance's parents' house for dinner, which was slightly weird. Also, my grandmother spent 3 days at our house, and still has no idea that I'm sick. It's not like we're even trying hard to keep it a secret at this point; she's just completely oblivious.

I came home on Monday, and my mom came with me, since she has the week off between Christmas and New Year's. We had a lot more planned than we actually accomplished (mostly due to my not feeling well), but we did manage to get to the Botanic Garden to see their Christmas display, and the Renwick Gallery, both of which were very cool.

My dad came down for New Year's Eve, and we went out for what turned out to be a really horrible dinner at Bistro Bistro in Shirlington. Never going there again. Ah, well, we all agreed it was an appropriate end to a pretty crappy year. We did manage to make up for it with a nice dinner on Saturday, after going to see the movie "Up in the Air," which I highly recommend.