Follow-up MRI

Today is the day of our daughter's follow-up MRI. As a mom, I've been looking forward to today for a couple of months. I REALLY needed to hear from doctors that our daughter is looking as good on the inside as she does on the outside.

Our day of tests started with a few frustrations, but our daughter did great. We have already received a call from the neurologist with some very positive news:

1. Our daughter's internal hemangiomas are regressing.

2. Our daughter's carotid artery seems to be carrying blood as needed.

3. Our daughter's brain is developing typically.

The official MRI report won't be available until Monday, but this initial news is a true encouragement. We will meet with all of her speciaists over the next two weeks to get their opinions, but this is FANTASTIC news!

Great News

On Monday our daughter had a follow-up appointment with her dermatologist. He thought she looked better than ever. He did not notice any swelling and liked how wide open her eye is. He made the decision to go ahead and take her off of her steroid...HOORAY! This is the day we've been waiting for since February 19th! This means that she will hopefully be able to be around other children by the end of the month.

During our appointment, our daughter was really personable. She was very alert and laughed and talked with the three doctors in the room. The dermatologist commented how pleased he was to see that she was on track neurologically. He was not overly concerned about her head size. He did say that it's odd that she's "crossing lines" as she falls off the growth chart. He commented that he would talk with his colleagues in Houston to see if there could be a correlation between head size and PHACE Syndrome. We see the neurologist at the end of next week where we'll talk more about her head size.

I spoke with our pediatrician today to let her know the good news from yesterday's dermatologist appointment. She asked us to keep our daughter secluded through the end of the month. Then, after she has her four month shots, she'd feel much more confident about allowing her to be out around other children. HOORAY!!!

We see the ophthalmologist tomorrow. Hopefully she'll be just as pleased with the progress!

Not what we expected

During a prenatal ultrasound, we first found out that our daughter had some enlarged ventricles in her brain. The doctors indicated that they would check to make sure her head didn't measure abnormally large after birth which might indicate water on the brain. We were told this would be monitored very regularly. We never thought that her head size would ever measure small...but that's what is happening.

When our daughter was born, her head size was in the 50th percentile. Now, at three months, her head size is measuring lower than the 25th percentile. Our pediatrician says that it could be due to the medications that our daughter has been taking for the last couple or months. She also wonders if her carotid artery abnormalities may have anything to do with it. So, she wants to check into it further to make sure it's not due to something serious.

Our pediatrician called our daughter's neurologist. They discussed the milestones that our daughter has reached already (rolling over, laughing, tracking objects with her eyes, etc). Because her development seems typical, the neurologist did not think it was necessary to see her immediately. We already have an appointment with him at the end of the month, and he thought it would be ok to wait and see our daughter then.

Please join us as we celebrate the developmental milestones that our daughter is meeting on a regular basis!!! Please also pray that the doctors will have wisdom in the coming weeks to order any further tests that might help to determine the reason for her head to be so small.