Snow and bumps

A 2.15am start this morning thanks to a very large, and very loud, snow plow. The "light snow flurries" as the weather forecast has been describing it have added up to several feet of snow, making for a magical winter wonderland and one ass that decides 2am is a good time to clear the parking lot near our house. I'm beginning to think I can't be the only one who hears this - we have a ton of residents in this area. I'll need to investigate who to complain to. At least, he could wait till 6am or so.


The "scattered flurries" are supposed to continue till Saturday. Already, it is nearly impossible to get out of the house because while they've managed to plow the roads, many sidewalks have not yet been plowed. Makes for good exercise for an expectant mom, as long as no sliding is involved.


With the windchill, it's supposed to feel like -15C out there (5F). All I know is that I'm wrapping up big time whenever I go out.


There is a downside to wrapping up, of course. Yesterday I was wearing my -40C snow boots which are great except that because I have PUPPP (yes, it was confirmed by my doc), it led to some intense itching on my legs. Too much heat.


The PUPPP is annoying. Calamine lotion seems to help a lot, but it's drying out my skin too much and with it being full blown winter already and lots of dry hot air indoors, this is hardly and ideal combination. My routine consists of a morning shower followed by lotion and lots of dandelion tea (supposed to help). Then I distract myself with work during the day. At about 6pm, the itching hits me and drives me insane. I then try to bear it as long as possible before taking an oatmeal bath (virtually cold yesterday as we seem to have some issue with our boiler running out of hot water), followed by more calamine lotion and tea, and at some point in the evening some kind of anti-histamine.


The doc did prescribe me a steroid cream, but lots I read online talks about how this leaves dark patches all over your body (no thanks). So I've limited the use of this cream to two locations on my body: my bumm, since itching is intense there and no one will ever see the dark patch other than hubby, and the back of my neck which is so itchy I scratch myself at night. The cream doesn't seem to be any better at killing the itchiness, so I'm not sure it's all that useful.


Given my dry skin, I changed tact yesterday and am now using Cetaphil lotion (designed for eczema). Not nearly as good as the calamine if you ask me, but it does keep the skin nice and moist, so am gonna try it for a day or two and see how it goes. Also switched the anti-histamine to Benadryl (instead of Zyrtec). The one effect that seems definite is that it makes me sleepy - so I fell asleep at 8.30pm last night. 


No wonder I woke up with the 2am snow plow.