A bit of our life, in words.

So, we had never heard of it either. PUPPP is a chronic hives-like rash that affects only about 1 in 200 women during pregnancy. It’s completely harmless, except that it will drive you to insanity with the intense itching. Pam would literally only sleep when she was fully exhausted; and sleep would only come 1 or 2 hours at a time.

There’s no miracle of modern medicine to cure or help (even the slightest bit) PUPPPs. The only stated, real cure for it is to give birth, and even then it won’t immediately go away. It can take up to 2 weeks to completely clear up after giving birth.

If you’re reading this because you’re searching for help, there is hope! After much Googling and endless searching, I came across a BBC article with a quote from someone who discovered that Dandelion Root can do the trick.

Dandelion Root = Cure for PUPPP.

Pam felt relief within 3 or 4 days, and after 2 weeks of religiously taking it, there’s only small moments of itching. It’s pretty cheap and has been the only thing that has worked for us. We bought ALL the creams and ointments that are available. Both off the shelf and prescription. None of them helped; some of them burned (badly) and others made the itching worse.

Aside from medicinal help:

• Cold air, cold baths, cold wet towels. Cooling the skin seemed to be a temporary relief
• Silk clothing (or other smooth material) helps to not scratch the skin when you move. Cotton, wool, tight clothing, etc do NOT help.
• Keeping the room temperature a bit warm so you can sleep without covers/sheets helps. We used a space heater (during winter) to make the room slightly warm so blankets aren’t needed. Any way you can keep your skin bare helps.

Hope this helps some people out there!

If you haven’t heard by now, we’re going to be having a baby! Very exciting! Pam’s been feeling great. No morning sickness or anything. We have our first doctor’s appointment next Wednesday. Other than that, we’re just waiting!

I’ve been working the past few days on a outdoor LED landscape lighting project. I bought some cheap outdoor solar lanterns that are mountable on a wall and separately bought some 3W, high-output 12V LED lights. I tore out all the insides of the lanterns and installed wiring for the lights and everything. It turned into a good full 2 or 3 day project to do 6 of them. I finally got the lights installed and put back together, installed wiring around the yard and setup a AC/DC converter and flipped the switch. Check out the pictures (best I could get a picture with my new 12MP camera!). The lights are awesome though. They give JUST enough light to light everything in the yard with a nice soft white light. It gives great ambiance… so much better than those dinky little LED lights that are powered by the little AA battery.

In other news, Pam almost BBQ’d me 2 days ago. We were going to grill dinner that night and I was in working on the computer. So Pam thought she’d save me the trouble and get some grilling experience in and put it all together and lit it up and close the lid. She came inside to ask me to come out and check it to make sure she did everything right, and as soon as I opened it up it just about exploded on me. I ended up having to get a haircut since it burned some of my hair on my head and arm. Crazy!

That’s about the most exciting news for now.

I’m getting burned out from long programming stints so I thought I could update the ‘ol blog.

We had a sales guy from a home security company ring our doorbell tonight. It was 7:30pm and dark outside, so it was a little odd. But he rang the doorbell despite our polite “No Soliciting” sign right above the doorbell. He opened with something about “not selling anything, it’s a promotion”, to which I replied “we don’t really appreciate soliciting” (while pointing to the sign). I think I’ll need to put a definition of “soliciting” next to the sign now, because his response was “Oh, no, I’m not selling anything, it’s a promotion”.

Anyway, he wanted to see if I’d let him put one of his signs in my yard to advertise their service. Really. I don’t use their service or have an interest in it, but he wanted me to advertise for him? Very weird. So I declined and said have a good night.

That’s really been the highlight of today, lol. I’ve been programming the rest of it. It’s getting down to crunch time and I’m in that mode. But like I said, I’m getting burned out. Blake (new business partner) is ironically at Disney World in Florida with his wife and twin boys, lol. =) Which was planned for months.

That’s all I can think of at the moment.