Changing

One evening we decided to take a little drive.  we got Dahlia in the car seat, but after about 5 minutes she was screaming her little heart out.  We didn't kno what was wrong.  We eventually thought it must be diaper rash hurting from pushing against the seat.  We never thought it might be the hemangioma.  

When we noticed the hemangioma changing we immediately emailed the pediatrician (that was the easiest way to get directly to our doctor.  We had kaiser).  He didn't even wait to talk to us before sending us  straight to the dermatologist.   this is what it looked like when we emailed the pediatrician - before we started any treatment (pictures from February 7, 2011).

The hemangioma was ulcerating.  

What is a hemangioma?

When our daughter was about 2 weeks old we noticed a red mark on her back.  We asked about it at the next well baby check, and were told it was a hemangioma.  When Dahlia's hemangioma was diagnosed, our pediatrician told us not to worry about it.  It was a birthmark that would get bigger for about 9 months, then start to fade away.  By the time she was 10 there would be no more red spot.  So we came home and did a little research, but not much.  It wasn't anything we needed to worry about.  We had no idea what we were in for.

 Wikipedia has a pretty good definition of a hemangioma:

A hemangioma of infancy is a benign self-involuting tumor (swelling or growth) of endothelial cells, the cells that line blood vessels. It usually appears during the first weeks of life and resolves by age 10. In infancy, it is the most common tumor.^[1] The word "hemangioma" comes from the Greekhaema- (αίμα), "blood"; angeio (αγγείο), "vessel"; -oma (-ωμα), "tumor" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemangioma).

This is Dahlia's hemangioma on February 3, 2011 (a little over 1 month old). It had been growing for about a month at this point. 

Typical, healthy hemangioma.