Aimee, Ellie puked twice last night and hasn't felt great today but her only other symptom has been a cough. Maybe something is going around?

Headline I would like to see being literally true:

Jousting begins ahead of health-care summit -Washington Post

Thinking about it, I hadn't heard her cough all day except for the ten minutes leading up to the vomiting. And now she's totally passed out next to me with no sound from her. I think we're going to set up the steamer in her room to get the air a little moist and see how that works tomorrow night.

~ma for Em and Aims.

Poor Em. Aims, a dry, barking cough can sometimes be Croup. It's not major serious but you'd know if the cough sticks around. She probably just barfed from the coughing.

Good luck.

She was so funny b/c Joe brought me the ice cream her and I bought on our way home from the movies and she said, in that weary, very sad, just threw up, liitle girl voice, "Mommy, you shouldn't eat that - it might make you frow up, too." Cutie pie girl.

Ooof. So cute.

Aims, I myself have puked in reaction to hard coughing fits. It tends to be one of my signals that the cough has gotten bad enough for a trip to the doctor. So in your shoes I would be paying attention for further developments by way of respiratory symptoms, rather than expecting further digestive upset.

Drew, here's hoping that your surgery goes well, when it is time for you to have it.

So let's celebrate the good ones, and encourage the others along paths to medical enlightenment. If such encouragement requires assertiveness on one's own behalf in the face of the some medical practicioners' predisposition to omniscience, well. It is what it is.

I do sometimes wonder if there is some kind of password or secret handshake that would let me know where to find the kind of doctor who would not just walk away after saying, "If that's all you are eating, you should be losing weight." It took me years to figure out that the unspoken conclusion to that statement was, "But since you aren't losing weight, that can't be all you are eating." I desperately need to find the a doctor who is capable of thinking, "Since that is all you are eating and you aren't losing weight, something else is wrong. Let's do ______ to find out." Hell, I don't even care if they think I'm a fat, disgusting liar - as long as I can find a way to get them to do the ______ to find out why my body is doing this to me. I hate being fat, I hate being stuck in this body, and I hate that I do not know how to make the learned and virtuous doctors, whom I have previously maligned and whom I have the privilege of seeing, actually help me.

Aw, Em.

Which one? Tellllll meeeee, I need more vampire movies.

Strigoi. It's a little slow and confusing, but very funny in parts and holy shit, what a flashback for me. If you watch it, keep in mind that I LIVED THERE. For two years. Okay, it's Romania, but it was exactly the same.

You can find trailers online if you want to get a feel for it.

Yay smonster boyfriend! Smitten is good.

I just read an email from him that he signed "yours, [name]." Meep!

Windy, I wish there was some easy way to find a doctor to help you.

Have you explained to doctors before what you just said? Would you feel comfortable going to a new doctor, explaining your past history and asking point blank if they'd be willing to believe you and run tests or do something to figure out what is going on?