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?

So, I made some mistakes this weekend.

I drank diet coke. A lot of diet coke.

I think today I had 3 20 ozs without realizing it, after no caffiene for a long time.

I'm all panicky feeling and I can't sleep and I'm freaking out that I'll feel like this in the morning OR that I won't get any sleep and I'll feel like crap in the morning. And I can't ask for the day off, not with all the time I'm going t need off for other things, and I don't feel like I can say why I need off -- that I'm having a panic attack.

But OMIGOD I had no idea how bad caffeine effects me. Really I had no idea. I've been less spazzy and more calm and I reaize that's from the lack of caffeine and ... anyway I'm just not doing good.

Plus I missed my strattera for nearly two weeks and that doesn't help.

I also realized that since iv'e been off the Strattera I've been cravign sweets and chocolate like crazy and eating, especially this weekend. I know I need to lose weight but it almost feels like this compulsion. I think it's connected in some way.

For whatever else is going on , askye , you have learned a major trigger. I have a friend with a son that has bipolar -- when he is out of balance , the only thing he craves is sugar.

I used to get sugar cravings when I was younger, I read in a book -- the Bipolar Child I think -- that sugar cravings and carb cravings are apart of the haywireness of the bipolar brain. Including getting fixated and obessive about eating them or having access to them.

It just sort of clicked what a thing it was tonight -- every day after lunch for the past week I've had a big cookie or brownie and this weekend I've had sweets. Tonight I went and got a diet coke, I was pretty mindless about it, and I got candy and I kept thinking how I wanted chocolate cake. I ate two candy bars in a row and was still trying to figure out what to eat.

But I put the reigns on it. I ate something protein related.

Plus it's amazing how quickly I slipped up. I started off just having weak ice tea and then it was the diet cokes.

Another issue that's going on is that I'm not able to follow my natural sleep patterns. I stayed up too late this weekend and now I want to do that again. If I had a choice, and when I wasn't able to work, I pretty much stayed up until 2 or 2:30 and then slept for 9 hours or so. I constantly have to fight against that.

{{{{{askye}}}}}} I'm sorry you are having such a rough time yourself.

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?

The last time I worked up enough nerve to try something remotely like that, I was seeing a nurse practitioner, and all she had was an offer for gastric bypass surgery or "something for my mood". I've given up. I'm too fat to get help.