It's a Hemangioma...Finally it's Official!

We've finally got a diagnosis for Rachel's ear!  After a 3+ hr drive to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock on Tuesday, the ENT we saw didn't even look at it for more than 30 sec. before telling us that is was in fact a hemangioma.  He followed the diagnosis with the fact that he wasn't the correct doctor to be seeing for it.  He tried to get us into the correct doctor but that guy was in a meeting and couldn't slip away.  Instead he talked to the 2nd year fellow and found out what the likely treatment would be.  Then he got Rachel lined up for a blood sugar test, blood pressure test, and EKG.  She was a champ and only cried when they stuck a needle in her ankle and the took it out again.  Even though she had missed a nap she was all smiles during the EKG and the nurse loved it!  After everything was done, Mom and I drove back home with Dean and Rachel taking turns crying for the last 2 of the 3 hours.  It was a long day.  We left at 8:30 am and got back at 8 pm.

   Yesterday, we met with the correct doctor at a much closer location and he confirmed the other ENT's diagnosis.  After taking 2-3 min. to clean out the wax that had built up behind the hemangioma he decided that it needed to be shrunken ASAP.  Hemangiomas are clumps of  blood vessels that can raise up.  They usually aren't treated and go away within a year or two.  Because it is in her ear, something he had never seen before, it is causing problems. Wax was building up and blocking her ear drum and she has a higher chance of ear infections since water can't drain out of her ear.  They've recently found that hemangiomas shrink in response to blood pressure medication, so he wrote a Rx for a high blood pressure medication and told us that even though the tech read the EKG as normal he wanted a pediatric cardiologist to look at the results before giving us the dose.  She'll likely start taking the medication on Monday until she's 1.  He acted like he expected to see results within a month.  Hopefully this medication route works so we don't have to go into the realm of surgery!

We'll there's the serious stuff.  Now onto the cute stuff:

These babies are adorable!  I say it, their dad says it, their grandparents say it, and even complete strangers say it.  Hummm....must be true!