The McMillins

Within the past month, Gretchen has gotten a pretty bad skin rash from scratching so much. She has scratched so much that she has scabs all over her. It started on the back of her neck and the elbow of her left arm along with part of her forearm. It has now spread to her chest and is starting to go to her shoulders. The doctor thinks she's allergic to the new hormones going into her body from the pregnancy. The doctor told her to take benadryl or zyrtec, as long as it isn't a de-congestant, and to put hydrocortizone on the areas 3 times a day.

The benadryl seems to make her drowsy and the zyrtec doesn't seem to work as well as the benadryl. She bought the strongest hydro-cortizone cream possible but it makes the areas sting b/c of the open wounds from scratching and it seems to make her itch even more after it's dried. She bought some Gold Bond medicated anti-itch cream that seems to be giving her some relief so far. She goes back to the doctor next week to see how the rash is doing. If it's not better, the doctor plans on sending her to the dermatologist.

Please pray that this will go away. She is miserable and we don't want to spend more money going to a dermatologist if we don't have to.

Gretchen just found out from a friend who is also homeschooling that she doesn't HAVE to teach for 4.5 hours per day. You only have to do that if you are going through the public school system to homeschool. Since we're apart of a homeschool association, we're apart of the "third option" which means as long as we have 180 days of school and certain subjects (which we're doing all of them) then we don't have any stipulation as to how long or short school has to be. Gretchen was so relieved of that.

So far, she likes homeschooling. We're thinking of putting Zach into school next year since we'll have 2 little ones but Gretchen doesn't want to make that decision until she has to. As of now, she wants to homeschool next year too and already has most of the curriculum anyway. So, it only makes sense.