Welp.

Happy New Year. I hope everyone survived their New Year's Eve. I talked to some people, and it sounded like they had a good time, although certain situations seemed rather suspect (cough cough underage!). Swell. I spent the evening watching various and sundry New Year's Eve television specials and watching powerpoints from highschool that made me sniffle a little. I was also able to see Chicago's fireworks display from here, which was super sweet. Otherwise, that's about it. My family brought our New Year's Eve tradition of Chinese food to me, which was awesome, although the sesame chicken was sub-par. Sigh. So now it is 2007. A brand-freaking-new year. One year ago, I had absolutely no idea that I would be where I am now, having done everything I did in 2006. (a lot.) I've decided against making any resolutions for the new year. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have enough to deal with without making myself feel guilty about losing ten pounds or drinking less coffee. I am just going to take whatever this year feels like it can throw at me. I am even--dare I say it--excited to see what happens. Yes, I'll say it, I actually can't wait to see what happens this year.

Medically, my year begins thusly:
I am dehydrated. Not like, oh man, I could use some water, or, oh man, I drank waaaay too much last night, but more like my body is not retaining fluid. Basically, I've been on a (ASIDE: holy crap, Pink's "Respect" just came on my shuffle. Oh wow. My life just got Made. Anyway.) so I've been on a saline-solution IV for about the past three, four days now. They started me on it when they told me I was, ahem, backed up, if you will. The idea was to rehydrate me. My body, however, is not processing the fluid or something. It's pretty much just sending it right out. Yay. The doctors weren't sure what was wrong with me. (heh heh. No one really is.) So they planned today to do a cortisol test. (cortisol is a hormone released by the adrenal glands that has something to do with fluid retention, among a variety of other things.) They thought that my body wasn't producing its own cortisol, although they weren't sure why. It would be an adrenal gland problem, which is never good. Now me being the stellar person I am (namely bored), I looked up cortisol online. Turns out there's a steroid called Dexamethasone that essentially decreases cortisol production. Now here's the funny part: I am actually taking dexamethasone. (yeah, that's right. I'm taking steroids. I'm a beast.) And since my doctors are all really super smart, no one remembered to check my growing list of pharmaceuticals. So, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. But basically, my glands aren't screwed up of their own accord, which is good. I'm not sure what they're going to do now, maybe give me more steroids to counteract the effects of the steroids I'm already taking. Sweet. Otherwise, we'll see what happens. The good times never stop here. Well, good luck to everyone who is spending today recovering. Pax.