For the past few days, Penny has had a bad sore throat. She's been having trouble swallowing, and I've secretly taken to giving her a new nickname.. "droolie". Shhh..

This morning the pain was really bad, so we decided to go to the doctor and see if there's anything they could do. We thought she possibly had strep throat, which isn't very good for the baby.. so at about 8:40 in the morning we headed off to see our GP. Actually, we're seeing a different doctor than the GP.. see, we've only been to this medical center twice.. and both times our GP wasn't available. In fact, we've never met the GP.. she's just the one they gave us when we asked if anyone had any room for new patients.

Anyway, we met with a really great doctor (Dr. Hull I think) who took a look at Penny's throat to see how she was doing. she said that she'd check for strep, but she really thought that it was a bacterial infection in her throat.. Basically there's a little muscle which covers the trachea which makes sure that food you eat doesn't go into your lungs. Well, this muscle is inflamed.. and causing a ton of pain every time penny swallows. In fact, Dr. Hull said that if it didn't get treated it could swell more and cut off her airway.

yipes!

But she wanted to be sure.. so she asked if they could do an X-Ray. I wouldn't mind having an x-man for a child, but I'm a bit worried that it might go wrong, so penny & I opted to head to the Ear, Nose, and throat specialist and have a camera sent down her nasal cavity instead so he could get a look for a positive diagnosis.

So we cruised over to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and met with a doctor there. While he was putting the scope up penny's nose I had to look away, because every time I glanced at her I got the giggles.

Sorry, it just looks funny to see a man staring into a black tube which heads straight into your wife's nostril, knowing he's wiggling around a little camera at the end.

Turns out the first doctor was right, so the second doctor (Dr. SomethingOrOther) gave us a prescription for antibiotics and steroids.

It's strange.. we've now officially entered the phase where you are having to make choices which are the lesser of two evils. Obviously, we'd prefer for penny to not have to take ANY medication while she's pregnant.. you never know how something can affect the fetus, and I'm deathly afriad of doing something wrong.

However.. we also can't NOT treat something like this because it's also bad for the baby for Penny to have an infection.

So.. we had to do something. So we're taking a chance and putting penny on the antibiotics and on the steroids. Keep your fingers crossed..

and while I think it's cute that I can't understand a word penny's saying with her sore throat, and I'm bummed to have to stop calling her things like "slobber-licious" I hope that the inflamation goes down soon.. I hate seeing her in pain.

it's one of the worst things in the world seeing the person you love hurting.

- jason