"What happened to his nose?"**

I'm pretty sure that I have heard that question in the last 2 months more than I've heard any other question in my entire life. And, to be completely honest, I don't even mind. I will admit, a few times at larger gatherings, I've grown a bit weary of spending the time mingling answering the same question over and over again to each new person I visit with. But I try to keep a positive attitude and patiently answer it over and over (and over and over and over) again without even getting snippy. (Okay, I will admit, at the last family gathering when I'd been asked for the 10th time by the 10th person, "what happened to his nose?" I nonchalantly answered, "Oh. I punched him." then shrugged and walked away.) Probably not my most graceful moment- but hey- it did solicite a laugh from my sister who was listening from across the room, so it was worth it. But, besides that, I've been good about patiently answering the same question for people who are curious.



And I completely understand people's curiosity. So, let me tell you "what happened to his nose" as best as I can. Honestly, I cannot tell you with certainly what "happened to" so much as I can tell you "what's on" his nose, because there is no definitive explanation for what causes it. What is on his nose is called a vascular hemangioma - aka "infantile hemangioma." Sometimes people call them "strawberry hemangiomas" because they are bright red and raised. What it is, in plain words, is just an abnormally dense group of red blood cells... a benign tumor.

They almost always follow the same pattern: 1) Very faintly appear shortly after birth; 2) Being to grow- sometimes very quickly and aggressively- for the next 6 to 12 months (proliferation); 3) Stop growing and remain stagnant for a period of several months to a few years; 4) Then begin to regress of the next several years (involution) until they are completely gone by the time the child is around 5 to 7 years old.

There are theories about how they develop, but no one knows for certain. Maybe something with the placenta in utero? Maybe something to do with a surge of estrogen? The bottom line answer is that- currently- there is no answer. There appears to be certain categories that experience higher incidence. Those categories include being female, premature and low birth weight... interestingly, none of which apply to Christian considering that he is male, was born on time and was 9 and 1/2 lbs. at birth!


Nevertheless, at about 5 days after birth we noticed a tiny red mark and even asked ourselves the question which would later become amusing to us (after hearing it so much)... "did he scratch himself?" As you can see for yourself by scrolling through these pictures from the bottom up- the mark appeared very faintly when he was a few weeks old and has progressively gotten redder and raised.

After 2 weeks we realized the "scratch" was not going away and assumed it was a "stork bite." But after about 6 weeks when we noticed it becoming slightly raised and after my Uncle- an M.D.- mentioned it could be a hemangioma- I realized that's exactly what it was.

Now, if you'd like to scare yourself, like I originally did- go ahead and google "infant hemangioma" and click on images. And then you will see (like I did) that Christian's hemangioma is very mild compared to what some of these poor dear children and their parents are dealing with. My heart breaks for what some of these little babies and children have to go through. It has completely put in perspective for us what a small matter we are dealing with and I am very grateful for how minor his is in comparison. In all complete honesty I absolutely thank GOD that this is just a cosmetic issue and nothing that affects his health. Because of the location of Christian's hemangioma our Pediatrician recommended we see a specialist at Children's Hospital. The concern would be that the hemangioma could grow too large and when it finally involutes it could leave saggy skin or extensive scar tissue that would be cosmetically unattractive considering that it's smack dab in the middle of his nose.

I brought Christian to the specialist yesterday and he recommended that we begin treating his hemangioma aggressively. For Christian's particular case that will mean laser surgery. This will NOT remove the hemangioma. All that it will do is prevent it from growing rapidly and aggressively larger, which is a real possibility. Because of his age, and because the procedure is painful while it's being done (but not after), that entails putting him to sleep under general anesthesia.  This is hard for me to swallow. It wouldn't be quite as bad, except that it will take several surgeries. Several meaning another surgery every 4-6 weeks up until he is a year old. If you do the math, well... I don't want to do the math and I've purposely avoided adding them up in my head. All I know is it's a lot of surgeries. It's a lot of depriving him of nursing for 6 hours prior to surgery, a lot of arranging childcare for the other kids, a lot of extremely early mornings (we need to check in for his first surgery at 6 a.m.!), and a lot of anesthesia.

Am I excited about these upcoming surgeries? Of course not. But we had to think about what is in the best interest for Christian. When we ask ourselves- how would he feel if he were older and we had not done everything to prevent it from growing larger and it potentially leaves him with disfigured skin on his nose- regardless of how minor?- we are left feeling like we should do whatever we can at this moment to prevent that from happening.



Is this a big deal? Absolutely not. In the light of eternity praise God that this is a minor, superficial matter. But come Monday morning, I would be lying if I said I wouldn't covet your prayers that everything would go perfectly smooth without any complications. Specifically, that my heart won't break watching him scream because he's hungry and I can't feed him, and even more so that there would be no problem with the anesthesia and the surgery itself.



I will keep you posted!
Angela

** Alternately titled, "Did he scratch himself?" LOL!