twelve twenty-three

 Here are a few good photos of the hemangioma today - on DP's 1st birthday.  After all the ulceration pictures I need to think about how good things are now.  It's not fun to think about the ulcer.

Disclaimer.  We don't always have a dirty, naked baby!  

She just got done eating her birthday cupcake, and there are some leftovers on her thighs. 

Her cute chubby baby thighs. =)

It's going away.  The white area in the middle is scar tissue (she'll always have that scar).  The red part is fading.  Also, this last picture shows the second hemangioma pretty well.  Yep, she has two!  The second hemangioma is below the red one - it's a deep hemangioma.  It won't cause any problems, will never surface, and looks like a pale bluish lump (it stays within the skin layers, causing no damage to organs).

Yellow is good!

The month of March (and most of April) is a blur.  We didn't take pictures.  We didn't do anything we didn't have to do.  We found out how infrequently we actually need to eat or sleep.  Once the hemangioma ulcerated we couldn't put D down.  I slept with her on my lap (we rigged up the nursing pillow, and I propped myself on the couch).  The girl couldn't get put down on her back, and I was too nervous to put her on her tummy before she could really control her head and neck.

The doctors were not much help.  Our pediatrician, who had been practicing for 30 years, had never seen an ulcerated hemangioma before.  He had no idea what we really needed, or how bad it really hurt our little baby.  We had a couple seriously traumatic doctor visits.

In the photos there are some black areas around the edge of the yellow center -

 this is area that had yet to ulcerate completely.  The ulcer was still going to get bigger.

We started by using vaseline, gauze, and paper tape.  THat is what the dermatologist told us to do.  That is how ulcerated hemangiomas are typically treated.  The picture above on the left is what happened to D's back after we took the tape off.  Those red marks didn't fade away.  And the tape didn't stick well because of all the vaseline.  It was a mess.

One of the most important things we learned during this phase of ulceration is that  yellow is good!  It looked infected.  An infection would have seriously been the worst thing that could have happened to the ulceration.  And it looked infected.  Even the pediatrician thought it might be and took a swab to send to the lab.

The yellow tissue is not infection.  It's called granulation tissue, and it is the skin trying to grow back.  Thanks, dermatologist, you could have told us that sooner!