Note to my family: I'll get the full version of the group photo sent out later this week. You don't want to make prints of this one; it's made really small for the Web.

March 23, 2005  
Things are always interesting around here. Ethan's doing better. So is Natalie (her cough came and went pretty fast). Then last week I got the same cough. I got my Zithromax filled right away, and now my cough is on its way out too. (You wouldn't think so by hearing my cough when it really gets going, but it IS better.)

Then this past Saturday, I was out doing some yard clean-up work, while it was still sunny and mild in the morning.  I made sure I was completely covered up - heavy jeans, socks, long sleeves, gloves - because I'm so sensitive to poison ivy. (Even though I figured nothing was growing yet, I wanted to take precautions.) By Saturday night, I had a very itchy, red, blistery rash all over my legs. Great, I thought, I did get into something -- somehow, even though I was sure nothing had touched my skin. By Sunday morning it was up to my hips, and by that afternoon it was going to my belly and arms. On Monday it was on my neck and some on my face, too. I went into the doctor because calamine lotions and sprays were doing nothing, and it hurt/itched so bad all over that I hadn't remembered it feeling like this since I had chicken pox at age 14. The doctor at first assumed, like I did, that I had gotten into something outdoors. But then he looked how it was spreading, all over my back too, that he said it probably wasn't that because that kind of rash only spreads where it contacted my skin or I scratched it. I couldn't reach some of the places where the rash was (is) at its worst. So he thinks it's either something that I inhaled that I'm allergic to, or it's something viral. He admitted to me that he has NO idea what it is. In any case, it's in my bloodstream. He gave me a cortisone shot, which usually helps my mom really well (I've got her sensitive skin pretty much), but still now three days later it hasn't gone away. I called back to the doctor yesterday and they told me that sometimes the shot is completely useless on some people. And if it is viral, it just has to "run its course". The one thing I do know is that it isn't shingles; that was one of my first questions at the doctor's office. He said the rash doesn't look like that. (Though I guess I'll know for sure around two weeks from now, if my kids suddenly come down with chicken pox...) So I have no idea what is all over me, but it's so painful and itchy, at times I can hardly stand it. I've been taking oatmeal baths and continuing to cover myself in calamine. The odd thing about this, is that sometimes it will almost completely go away, and then five minutes later I look down at my legs, feet, arms, or whatever else and it's back, looking worse than ever. It comes and goes. Yesterday morning it was so bad that we almost went over to St. Ann's for them to do something, anything, and then I got a shower and came out, and it was still there, but by the time I'd dried my hair it had disappeared again. I didn't want to go and tell them, "there was a rash here ten minutes ago, honestly!" So what is this; I have no idea. Just yet another in the string of sicknesses in the Gerth household this season. I keep thinking of the footnotes in my Bible, below every reference to someone having leprosy, where it says "Leprosy, defined as any one of several conditions of the skin." Unclean! Unclean! (Haha)

So now for our biggest news of, well, of a really long time. (No I'm not pregnant again. HA!) We've decided to move. We're moving to Canal Winchester, to a place just a few minutes from Phil's work. We'll be farther from church, but we drive there less often than Phil drives to his office, so it's going to be much better for him that way. The biggest part of it, though, is that we've decided to sell our house and rent an apartment. To conventional thinking, you don't go back to renting after owning, but in our case we've just decided that it's the wisest thing we could do. At this point in our lives, we just want to be out from under debt, and our house is our biggest debt. Selling will be a big step toward our goal. Hopefully we have a little equity built up, too, so it can go toward other debt. Phil's car was paid off last month, mine this month, so we're really making progress. (Now to just keep our cars running...) Phil's business has really been taking off the past few months, so this is a good time to really start making some headway on the debt. We found an apartment that is bigger in square footage, with three bedrooms and two and half baths, for less than what we are paying right now. We'll have a room for each kid, and more room for toys (instead of our living room being one big toy box)! The only downside is that there is no basement, but honestly our basement is nothing other than a storage PIT anyway. Stuff just gets dumped there. There is good storage space in this apartment, and we will have a garage, too, but we're going to be doing some serious cutting back in stuff anyway. People from church have really blessed us with bags and bags of clothes since Natalie was born, but there's a lot of that she never wore and I can't imagine either Ethan (or any future kids, aHEM) wearing them either, because they just aren't our style. So I'll save some stuff, but we don't need to keep all of it.

The apartment is brand new (grass is just now being planted over there), so everything is really nice. No lingering scents of smokers, dogs, cats, or anything else. All the appliances are Maytag and brand new. We have our own bathroom and shower off the master bedroom! (No more tub toys to step around!) And there is a workout room, really nice pool (with a 2-foot side, too, which will be nice), and a movie theater. By the summer there will also be a big playground.

We're excited. We signed the lease and got our keys yesterday. We've decided that it will be easier to sell this house if a) it is empty so we can fix and clean it properly, and b) if I don't have to worry about having a showing in ten minutes, when two kids and all their toys are chaotically strewn about. Our realtor, a lady from our church, called yesterday to tell us that she's already found two buyers who are interested, and it isn't yet officially on the market. (This is a really unique place for this city - there aren't any other no fee/no association condos, and we're in a good neighborhood, close to schools.) So now, time to start packing! Moving will probably be a couple-week process for us, but we're looking for the weekend after this one to be the big move day.

March 14, 2005  
I've been long overdue for an update. I actually wrote a whole bunch one day early last week, but I hadn't uploaded it yet, and when I came back later in the day the program was shut down and it hadn't been saved. Oops! Other than that, I just haven't taken the time to get on here, and late last week I took on an editing job, a 305-page nonfiction book, so I probably won't be updating much until I get that finished, since the author needs it by the end of the month. (Most of my free time is taken up by that right now.)

First things first, though -- yesterday Ethan turned 7 months (how is this possible???), so I've posted his new picture here. About a week ago - let's see, a week ago Saturday, that's when I wrote my last failed update -- Ethan started creeping. He's not crawling yet but it can't be long. He gets his little bottom in the air, rocks back on his knees, and pushes against his arms. So he goes backwards. He moves all over the floor! He's also gotten very good at lunging from a sitting position, right onto his belly on the floor, in order to reach a toy that he sees. He dives right over head first, which always makes me flinch, but he catches himself on his hands and then instantly grabs for the toy that now is in reach!

Ethan is doing much better health-wise. We're still taking it a little easy on him, because it seems when he gets over-stimulated he starts coughing or breathing hard again, but most of the time he seems just fine. He's taken the whole sickness so well! Natalie started coughing all the time, really hard, so we did end up getting her on the Zithromax too, I think the day after I wrote the last update.  I think it pretty much worked on her completely. There has been one very frustrating side-effect from her sickness, though. She was coughing so hard in the middle of the night, that she didn't hold her bladder, and she woke every morning to wet sheets. I've been washing a LOT of sheets! Even though she's not coughing much anymore, now she's still waking up wet most mornings, and that is really frustrating because she hadn't had a single wet night since potty training, before this. We've thought about putting her back into pull-ups at night time, but we haven't done it yet. Knowing my kid, if we were to do that I think she'd feel completely free to not even try to make an effort at getting to the potty. As long as the diaper is there... But I don't know how much more I can take of wet sheets every morning. She has a waterproof mattress pad on her bed, so at least it doesn't go any lower than the sheets, but we're daily changing sheets, blankets, PJs, and sometimes her Smiles pillowcase when the pee gets up that direction.  Which, of course, means we need to make sure that load of laundry is finished right away!

By the way, I've heard that there's been a pretty big outbreak of whooping cough this year. I don't know if that means a strain that's resistant to the vaccine or not, but now I know that it's not so strange that Ethan got it.

March 2, 2005  
Ethan had a better day today. He only vomited once, and ate a little too! (A couple bites of rice cereal mixed with applesauce.) Unfortunately, my milk supply has greatly diminished over the past week, so he's been pretty frustrated today when he has wanted to nurse. (I've felt pretty empty all day.)  I'm just trying to limit his pacifier use as much as possible, so that it can get back up. (In other words, I'm nursing a whole lot!)

We went to the doctor today at 1:45 and got some mixed news. On the good side, his lungs did sound better today than when we went in yesterday. Not great, but somewhat better. Dr. Kern was encouraged that at the time of the appointment, Ethan was about due for his next Albuteral treatment (every 4 hours), yet his lungs sounded as good as they did. Dr. Kern could tell that some of his airways are still not open, which is causing him to take rapid breaths and also it is taking him about twice as long as it should to exhale. He said that at his age, the in and out should be about the same, but the out is taking him twice as long. And, as he said he suspected yesterday, Ethan has whooping cough. (Also known as pertussis.) It's actually something that he was immunized against (the DTap), but it just didn't "take". Dr. Kern said that the vaccination is pretty short-lived, which is why they need so many doses of it to be fully immune. With Ethan being so young, he hasn't gotten them all yet. Hopefully, with what he has had, maybe the whooping cough won't be as severe or as long as it could be if he hadn't gotten any immunizations against it. We hope. I don't know all that much about it yet (I'm doing some reading of course) but I've heard it's pretty typical for it to take 6 weeks to go away. We're staying with the Zithromax, Albuteral, and steroid meds, and of course prayer!  

I read today that whooping cough can actually cause pneumonia, so it's very likely that these have been working together this whole time. It's just pretty rare to see whooping cough in kids these days, with the DTaP vaccine, so it's not the first thing they look for.

Oh, and while we were in the office, Natalie started having a big coughing fit too. She's been waking up the past couple nights with bad coughing (even making her wet the bed, poor girl.) She's had this cough for awhile now too, but it hasn't gotten as bad as Ethan. Dr. Kern checked her lungs today, too, just to be sure. She still sounded good, but wrote me a prescription for Zithromax in case it gets worse. She's gotten more shots, but that's no guarantee, as we've found out. If she starts getting bad, we're not going to waste any time on getting her on the antibiotic. As Dr. Kern said, since Ethan has it, there's a higher chance of him passing it to her.

We're praying for continued improvement for Ethan, and health for Natalie and the rest of us. I sure am tired of visiting the doctor's office. (Though it sure is better than a hospital stay.)

March 1, 2005  
Here's today's installment of what is becoming a daily update. (If you've missed it, see the last few days of February's journal.) Dr. Kern called last night, asking us to come in to see him again today, because Ethan still hadn't dramatically improved. He also called in a new prescription for him, this time for Zithromax. It seems the other just wasn't working. We're now on a full week of coughing, diarrhea and vomiting, so I was getting even more concerned too. He seemed to be a LITTLE better yesterday, relatively speaking, but this morning he seemed to get worse again. He had three big vomits just this morning. So, we went in to the doctor's office today at 2:15. Dr. Kern said he's not looking dehydrated, which is good considering it's been a week since he's eaten much. He's not running a fever right now, and he said his lungs and airways seem to have less mucus than on Saturday. But, now Ethan has wheezing in his lungs. So, more meds. He gave him an oral steroid and also Albuteral, which we need to give him every four hours. Fortunately, unlike the saline, this one is done in 10 minutes instead of an hour! It was hard getting him to sit still to inhale that for an hour straight! (It really does look like I'm giving my 6 month old a pipe to smoke --he likes to stick the end in his mouth and chew on it, of course, so then the mist comes back out through his nose and mouth. It would be pretty funny if the situation was a little lighter!)

We've got another check-up with Dr. Kern tomorrow afternoon.