At 10 months Charlie sprouted a red mark on his face that was growing and looked like a classic strawberry birthmark, or hemangioma. I was a little confused because I'd never heard of them coming out so late and it was growing pretty quickly. His pediatrician thought it was one of 2 things--a hemangioma or a pyogenic granuloma...at that point there had been no blood, so he guessed it was probably a late-arriving birthmark. Well, the night of Kate's birthday party here at the house, the flood-gates opened, or more accurately, the blood-gates. It bled terribly for 5 hours, necesitating a trip to the ER so that could put a coagulant on it stop the bleeding...we gingerly left for St. George the next day, hoping for the best. It bled in the night, it bled driving home from St. George (forcing us to stop at the ER in Vegas...it looked like it was going to stop on our own, so we walked out), and it's bled MANY time since...turns out it's a pyogentic granuloma, not a birthmark at all. It's a capillary that's growing, and it has to be removed. We've made a few trips to the dermatologist already, it's been lasered once, and we're going again this week to have it lasered again. What a pain, seriously.
This was the first night...we put him in the bathtub twice just to contain it...it doesn't seem to hurt him at all...
It used to look like this...
I was just proof-reading my post and remembered why I took this picture below...I came in to get Charlie one morning, and his PJs were still on and snapped up, but notice his diaper and all its contents sitting on the mattress...not sure how he managed that one...all the gel stuff was strewn across the crib and bumpers...that must have taken some serious diaper-tugging through a small spot between snaps!
Sometimes he'd start bleeding after we'd put him to bed and this is what we'd find a few hours later...gross, I know.
He has looked like this quite a bit over the past several weeks, as cleaning it off seemed to aggravate it and make it start bleeding again, so we left it.
Hopefully we'll be done with this soon...
4 comments:
Poor Charlie! I hope the appointment this week goes well!
Awww! Poor little guy!! I hope the lasering takes care of it soon!!
those pictures are heartbreaking.. poor kid! Becky had a pyogenic granuloma on the tip of her finger, and yes it bled profusely! She got it removed last March and hasn't had a problem since. They took out a huge chunk of her finger, and now you can't even tell there was ever a problem. (Jon)
awwwww, poor thing! Even if it doesn't hurt--it looks terrible. Hope the appointment goes well!
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