I so totally agree.. not an answer! BUT darn... that has to be considered good news!!

Still put my 2 cents in daily to God, for you and your family.

Something good will come, I just know it. Hang tight..

and tell hubby you want something really good this year!! CAUSE YOU DESERVE IT!

So when you become a "normal" person, please don't put MY finger up your nose, is all I'm askin'. Deal?

You only deserve good things, Susie, and I'm sure Jif will spoil you. I'm so glad about that bit of good news. I'm with Eclectic though - you just keep your nose away from our fingers! ;0)

Susie, this sounds encouraging! I'm glad. Let Jif spoil you. Face it, Susie -- you're stuck with us!!

I think that is great news, that ALF is not you problem...

I will refrain from making any throat jokes and let bucky handle that.

I am so happy that something was partialy ruled out.

Not exactly an answer, but I'd take No Monstrous Illness, at least for the time being.

I'm with Kentucky Brat--you deserve something BIG this year. And I hope you can feel all the big (and little!) prayers we're all sending up for you.

*hugs*
Sending good thoughts your way.

Susie to Jif(after reading your comments): All my blogfriends are saying you should get me something REALLY good for Christmas, because I deserve it.

Jif: Yea, now that I know you're going to be alive for Christmas, I'll have to go shopping.

He is such a romantic devil.

kybrat, worth so much more than 2 cents, my friend. Thank you for hanging in with me :)

eclectic, I ain't makin' any promises.

platypus, once this is over, there's no telling what I might do to celebrate :o

lynn, you make me sing Huey Lewis: I'm so happy to be stuck with you :)

william, thank you. It IS good news. It's just that once that ALF seed has been planted, and no one can say for SURE it's not that, I'm afraid it will linger until they find what IT is, or until I just get better. No one will say I DON'T have it because my symptoms are in some ways consistent with it; but you're right, it is encouraging when someone can point out the ways in which they are not consistent with it. Hopefully the new new-rollogist can do even more of that. Next Friday. That would be a great Christmas gift. Can't imagine a better one, right now.

shawkey, I have no doubt that the big and little prayers are making a difference. I am counting on them, truly.

MoDis, hugs back to you, and your little dogs too! ;)

ooooh ooooh ooh!!

As someone who appreciates a good insult, I believe the "rubber hose" one was featured on Welcome Back Kotter on many occasions.

Normal person? There are people that are normal? I'm not familiar with any normal people...

Love you, Susie Q.

Something big:

A trip to Hawaii
Something blingy
New wheels

Jif, you may be in trouuuubleeeeee :)

(and Mr. Bloggerific beat me to it, I was going to cite Welcome Back Kotter as the source of that prime insult. In grade school we used to make up similar ones, like "In your ear with a a can of beer" or "Up your butt with a coconut". Wordsmiths we were indeed, in 4th grade or so.)

mrB, yes, indeed, it was the sweathogs :) I was going to share with you the tropical version, but Andrea beat me to it.

ck, well, the kind of normal with fingers in noses. That kind.

andrea, wordsmiths, indeed. I would try to top those, but it's late, and having had an actual rubber hose up my nose earlier today, I'm not at peak performance tonight. Where's Bucky when you need her? I'm sure she could regale us with rhyming objects in orifices til the cows come home.

Normal is just a setting on your dryer. Abnormal is putting your finger up a nose that belongs to someone else.
Just wanted to reassure eclectic that if you become normal she has nothing to worry about. At least about the nose thing. ;-)

Susie, I pray that something positive comes of all this and you get a valid diagnosis from someone.

Did John Hopkins let you have a video of your insides?

Now, have you decided on what you do want for Christmas?

Well, I am gonna take this as good news and say YIPPEE even if it isn't great news. Isn't it truly amazing how you adjust to a new 'normal' when going through crap like this? Who knew that tubes and orifices and the meeting of them would become ok in the grand scheme of things. Oh yes, you deserve to be spoiled rotten. Continuing to send positve vibes your way.

I'm thinkin' that if I ever see you with just your finger up your nose, I'll know your WTF has hit the trail and then I can hug the stuffin' outta you! I was gonna say 'hug the snot outta you' but if you've got your finger up there, I don't think I need to be doin' that job now do I???!!! Soooooo...didja tell him what you want for Christmas?

As hoses with cameras go, it's not the one up the nose that fills me with horror its the one that they put up the..well the other end to your nose, ack, horrible I imagine, Hoorah for not having ALF, hope the present is a fabulously fabulous one.

Maybe not the best news you were hoping for, but it's a start!!

You totally deserve to be spoiled. And sheesh, tell that man to get shoppin'!! :)

Normal with fingers in noses? Damn, how did *I* end up giving birth to three of those normal people?

I'm partial to the new car idea.

So... maybe the kind of store where Bucky shps would have the perfect gift for the girl who has trouble swallowing?


***sneaks away giggling***

I want you to go back to shuddering at the idea of a hose in your crevices and tubes as well. But although it isn't a diagnosis, "not the big baddy" is good news, right? Of course an actual (treatable) diagnosis is what we are all still praying for.

*crosses fingers and shoves them up nose*

Let's all say it together: What in hell DO you want for Christmas? Other than that, of course.....

Here's to better and better news. Remember that Christmas Miracle from last year? Well, we're looking for a real one this year. :)

Hey, I hear my name being used in vain here...over and over and over...

Not that I would stoop so low as the Sweathogs, but...


...since you insist:

Up your ass with some broken glass.
In your twat with a gob of snot.
Down your throat with a rabid goat.
In your dickhole with a kosher pickle.

Okay, just riffin' there. I never promised art.

Bucky, you probably just made Susie snort and choke with that one.

Bet she appreciated it. :)

I'm came over for my usual dose of Sunday inspiration and instead found Bucky's ... ahem ... poetry. I hope you're being suitably spoiled and that Bucky's rhyme didn't cause you to spit your coffee at the screen or anything!

nina, I still want eclectic to worry ;) Even if I get back to MY "normal," I'll be a looooooong way from normal normal :)

ssnick, they did not give me the video of my insides, not even a snapshot that I could enclose in my Christmas cards! I'm still thinking about what I want for Christmas.

kranki, I know you know what I'm talking about. Things you would have said/thought, "I can't do that/have that done to me..." Comes a time when, in the big picture, those things aren't all that big anymore, and it's what might be on the other side of those things that's big. And scary. :(

traci, when WTF is over, shall I post a picture with my finger up my nose? I could, you know... I made a little list for Jif.

t.o.m., yea, butt you're asleep, or can be, when they do the other end. I've had that, too. The one I had this week, I had to -- I am not lying -- sing "Happy Birthday" and read to the guy while the hose was where it was!
I want to make someone tell me, with a 100% guarantee, "You do not have ALF." And they can't. So I have to try to not be a baby about it. The best they can do is keep saying, "Your symptoms are consistent with ALF because..." BUT "blah blah like you have is NOT consistent with ALF" BUT "everyone is different, every course of ALF is unique..." So that's where I live now. Collecting the ways in which I am not consistent with ALF, and trying not to think too much about the ways in which I am. I don't like living here, I want to move.

hemlock, Jif is a notoriously late shopper. Early in our marriage, I told him, "You go shopping for me after all the other husbands have bought all the stuff . . . I get what's left!" And he said, "All the stuff that was on sale is gone; you get the really good stuff that the other husbands didn't want to splurge on." He always come through, right under the wire ;)

ck, sometimes the genes just scramble that way :)

jeannie, that would be quite thrilling, but I'm pretty sure my 1999 Saturn is going to be around for a while longer.

eclectic, you are sick and wrong. And I love you.

ern, that gesture of solidarity (crossed fingers, up nose) is most touching to me. Thank you, my friend.

hoss, I gave Jif a list. I want pretty sox and new mixing bowls . . . I forget what else. I'm easy, though.

squirl, wouldn't that be something? I see a new new-rollogist on the 23rd. It would be nice to go into the weekend with some very hopeful news. Thing is, even with the most-likely-positive news from the throat doc, my symptoms remain the same, my body is still doing what it's doing, so it's hard to reconcile the two.

chchchchia, squirl truly is the best furry creature around. Now:
1. Interesting. I have to get an appt. with a speech person. It seems that I may be doing some weird things to myself, in my effort to combat the weird throat things that I'm not doing to myself, that it's doing to me. You follow that?

2. I have detected signs of bling shopping. And I have said, "Oh, don't get that this year, we can't really afford it." But of course I mean, "YEA! BLING ME!"

3. Eclectic is very therapeutic. No doubt.

4. Always a welcome gift. I shall pass this on for sure.

Love back to you, pretty kitty.

bucky, *sniff* I knew you'd come through for me. I sat down here at the computer this morning with my Bible, looking for today's scripture, and I check in here only to find your um "verse." You do me proud.
btw, I took your name in vain (as did many others) at bloggy's yesterday, on his "fornicating monkeys" post. Better go defend your honor, girlie.

squirl, indeed, that was my reaction. I always (well, darn near always) appreciate our little sister's art.

platypus, yes, when I saw your comment, I thought I should hurry up and post a . .. an alternative to the verse that appears here. So church is in session now ;)

Woo! (That's half a woohoo, FYI) I'm happy for you--half way--lets get rid of WTF completely though, mmm'K?

Hugs!

You're constantly in my prayers, my friend. Much love and many virtual hugs to you, dear.

Forgive me, Susie...I'm sure you are weary, oh so weary, of the armchair diagnoses from the Internet ether...and I also apologize if this is repetitious:

Have the Hose Wielders and Nu-Rollogists ruled out spamsmodic dysphonia?: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/10/good_news_day.html, as well as Rocky Mountain spotted fever? (No joke; close friend was just diagnosed.)

Oh, on the Jif spoiling Susie issue? That's what they (the mens) like to do, so let 'em do it! When Cap'n William grouses about how he "doesn't do jewelry", I just silently hand him the printouts (with stock numbers, natch!) from Tiffany's web site and bide my time. (Just so you know, there are now TWO pieces of Tiffany bling in the jewelry drawer...)

- Lotus Lynn

Does the stuff they use to numb your throat taste like bananas and gasoline? Hot Stuff swears it does.

I feel so relieved!! This doctor sounded smart. But of course we would all prefer a cure.

Happy Christmas, a few days early... I am enjoying all the holiday stories!