Living with a Hemangioma

This is a strawberry hemangioma. And yes, that is the side of my sweet baby's face.

Miss Elly was born with this. Well, actually she wasn't. It didn't show up until she was a week old. But technically it was there when she was born. Hemangiomas are like benign tumors. It's a collection of blood vessels that grows incorrectly close under the skin. They show up in the days or weeks following a child's birth and grow for the first year. After the first year, hemangiomas shrink, usually fading completely by the child's fifth birthday.

Hemangiomas are more common in girls. And they're apparently hereditary, since both of my girls have one. Evie's was in her diaper area and luckily never got bigger than a pencil eraser. Still, we visited a plastic surgeon at Baptist hospital several times to keep an eye on it. Hemangiomas can appear any where on the body. They can also grow to be massive and cause lots of problems with a baby's development. Typically if a hemangioma is going to cause a child any problems, it will be removed. Either by laser or cut off.

The doctors were initially concerned with Evie's hemangioma because of the potential for irritation and infection. But by her first birthday, hers had already disappeared. Elly's caused a completely different set of worries. Because of its proximity to her eye, the doctor was worried that it's growth would interfere with her eye lid's function, her vision and therefore her development. A young child has only a very limited number of ways to take in the world and learn. Interference with vision, a major sense, could cause some very serious delays and problems for Elly.

Queue lots of worrying and stressing and praying on part of her mom.

The doctor didn't want to do anything unless it was necessary, though I was initially for lasering that bad boy off before it could cause problems. I didn't want my poor little girl dealing with this big ugly growth for half a decade. I wanted it gone! But the doctor wanted to wait til she was older. Unless it started causing any problems. In the meantime, he just wanted to wait and see. Then we could possibly look at putting her on some medication to limit its growth. Or even do some laser treatments and remove it.

At six months old the doctor started talking about laser treatments and I actually thought about what all would really be entailed in doing laser treatments. Elly would have to be put under general anesthesia, she certainly couldn't be expected to just hold still while they performed the procedure. And since she was being put under, they'd have to put her on a cardiac monitor, IVs, and might even have to intubate her. Now, a cardiac monitor isn't really that scary for an adult. Nor is an IV. Not even with my fear of needles. But this is a six month old baby. Imagining my daughter surrounded by tubes and wires scared the crap out of me! So I asked, since the hemangioma hadn't grown much, if we could wait a couple more months and see what was happening before we booked an OR. The doctor agreed. And we set up an appointment for when Elly was 8 months old.

Fortunately, at the 8 month appointment, Elly's hemangioma was starting to fade. The outer edges were nearly gone, only the dark patch by her eye remains. The plastic surgeon feels like it has grown all it will and it should continue to fade and disappear in the coming months and years.

Initially I had a lot of concerns about the aesthetic issues with Elly's hemangioma. After we decided it wasn't really interfering with her vision or development, which was my main concern. I worried about people thinking something was wrong with her. And lots of people ask if she fell down or scratched herself. I try not to. But I worry about if it hasn't faded by the time school starts, what the other kids will say to her or about her.

Kids can be so mean. I don't want Elly to start out life with a disadvantage. So I hope and pray that it is gone before then. And I know they'll notice it. Even Evie regularly points it out and asks about Sissy's booboo. And she's only two.

Despite my concerns about the presence of the hemangioma affecting Elly's future, I'm still not willing to put her through a potentially serious surgery and all the pain and problems associated with it for an aesthetic procedure. So we will wait and see. And of course pray it's gone. And thank God that it isn't causing any problems.