Wherein I sound a little more positive than I did earlier.

Well, we made it through today. To be honest, I think the most exhausting part of the day was having to find my GI's office in the middle of Baylor All Saints. Is there anything worse than knowing you're about to find a tiny medical office in the middle of the hospital district? Yuck. And with three kids in tow, it's nothing short of daunting.

We left here around noon and swung by Sonic for a drink to take with us to the doctor. (I will admit right here and now that any posted "rules" a doctor's office may display are flagrantly ignored by the Cooke family. We eat, we change diapers, we use cell phones, we're really a dream.) We got to the hospital district with 15 minutess to spare, which is great because we parked in the wrong garage and had to walk about a block and a half in the freezing wind. After several calls to the doctor's office to find out just exactly where "Building D" could be, we ran into the office right on time and paid our $40 copay. ($40! There goes today's grocery money...) Now let me remind you that I have a cough for the ages, and as I'm trying to sign myself in (new patient paperwork + 3 children = gahhhhh), I'm coughing like a maniac, germs just a-flyin'.

We get called back pretty quickly, and they put us in the tiniest exam room they possibly have. Maybe...5x8? And we sit. For an HOUR. My girls? They were perfect. They sat together on a tiny foot stool and watched The Cat in the Hat on my phone while Claire screamed and clawed at my face. I tried to feed her, play with her, console her, strap her into the carseat and ignore her...nothing. She just wanted to stand on my lap and screech at the top of her lungs while I coughed so violently I could feel my heart dislodging from my ribcage. While I should have been praising my little angels for being so perfect, I was lamenting my own sorry state.

The doctor came in and was very odd. She was nice, but I couldn't tell if she agreed with me, thought I was nuts, or if I was just wasting her time. She had a very strange manner and all of a sudden I just wanted to cry and get out of there. She just kept looking at me like I was an idiot. It did, however, turn out that my self-diagnosis was spot-on and that my current GI is a complete loon. I will not be starting immuno-suppressants before Christmas, thank the Lord. We decided that the best idea would be to finish the steroids, give it a few weeks, do a quick scope to check the inflammation and go from there. I may or may not need some light maintenance drugs, but as my disease is "mild" and presents no real hardships for me, she said that a colonoscopy every 2-3 years and some light meds will work just fine.

She was nice enough to point us through the hospital to get back to our car, rather than make us walk the walk in the cold, so we hustled our biscuits back to our parking garage, where I did the "keep up for cryin' out loud" hustle to our car on the 4th floor. What's funny is that this guy, about 24 or so, was walking next to us and was clearly just over the moon. He said, "Are you here for a baby too?" I was feeling SO poorly that rather than get totally stoked for him and sing the praises of baby-producing, I looked at him like he had 4 heads and squawked, "Are you outta your MIND?!" I quickly realized that the poor guy's wife was in labor and changed my tune as I coughed and hacked in the cold. Lucy handled the entire faux-pas for me as she so often does, and told him that we just love babies and we're going to have a million more and please-tell-your-wife-congratulations! And then she gave me a, "Do I really need to talk to you about your manners?" look and told me to get in the car. Schooled.

We then went to Best Buy, where my children sat like little statues while Miguel kindly replaced my SIM card and fixed my whole texting issue. Mind you, they did not nap today. I was floored, but still too consumed with self-pity over my cough to realize just how awesome they were being. Even Claire just sat in her seat and smiled sweetly. Lucy mentioned something about Rudolph (obsessed.) so I decided to reward them for their awesomeness by just BUYING the doggone DVD already so that she can watch it until she fairly wears out over the whole thing. She was so excited I thought she was going to pop.

When we got home, I set to fixing dinner (scrambled eggs and madarin oranges. that's right. who treats you right?) and was tickled when the doorbell rang and it turned out to be a box of candy that I had the foresight to order last week from Bomboy's. (I happened to order it on a particularly rotten day, and what joy that it should show up on an even more rotten day!) I met the mailman at the door and boy was he shocked when I realized what it was and screamed, "THANK YOU SWEET JESUS!!!" and fell over the threshold coughing to death.

As soon as we got home I loaded up on all sorts of cough medicines and pain relievers and the like, and I'm really hoping to be IN my bed by 8:30. I need sleep. I need to recuperate. I also need to take the baby in for shots at 8am, so that's kind of a contributing factor. Getting out the door before 8am is pretty much my best trick.

I've gotta go. Stay tuned - plenty of cute pics coming up soon!