Praise for propranolol!

Caroline had an appointment this week with Dr. Prose, so I decided to print off some comparison pictures to take with me to show him the difference. I had not really compared Caroline's most recent pictures to ones before propranolol, so I was shocked at how different the hemangioma looked. Maybe there has been dramatic change after all! Although I was hoping to keep her on it just a little bit longer, it was decided to continue weaning her off the propranolol. We had decreased to two doses a day, now we are down to one. Dr. Prose really feels like Caroline is at the point now where her body will take over and the hemangioma will begin going away on it's own. This week, I've really been thinking about the blessings to be thankful for in all of this. While certainly if given my choice, I would rather have never known what a "hemangioma" is at all, there are countless ways I truly believe the Lord has taken care of Caroline and her needs. I'm thankful to have a pediatricians office who listened to my concerns and referred us to a specialist in the early stages of the hemangioma. I'm thankful that we were led to Duke and the wonderful care that Dr. Prose has given Caroline. I'm thankful that Dr. Prose was willing to try a new treatment for her (propranolol) when the hemangioma began growing again and we were trying to avoid the awful side effects of restarting the steroid. Even the location of her hemangioma is a blessing! Most doctors advocate taking a "wait and see" approach with hemangiomas unless it is impacting a vital function or organ. Basically, this means that unless it is affecting seeing, eating, or breathing, NO treatment is given and the hemangioma is left to run it's course. This could take years! Left untreated, hemangiomas like Caroline's can grow very large, very quickly, causing ulceration (sores) that are extremely painful and difficult to manage. I have seen the pictures and read the stories from parents who are dealing with that firsthand and it's heartbreaking. Thank you, Lord, for protecting Caroline! Here are the before and after pictures so you can see for yourself:

Day one of propranolol

This is day two 0r three

This is now, taken two weeks ago.

Pretty dramatic to me!

Caroline's 9 month photo shoot

We are so lucky that Zack's uncle, Jimmy, is a professional photographer who so graciously takes pictures of Caroline for us. He has taken many beautiful photographs of Caroline since her birth and we are so thankful for him! We visited Zack's parents in SC over the weekend, and he took lots of pictures of Caroline then. I put together a slide show of all of them to share with Caroline's blog readers. They are precious! Thank you Jimmy, we love you!!

Catching up!

I have several posts I want to make, but I want to do them in order, so I'm going to start with some pictures from Easter. We had a great Easter weekend at my mom's house, went to church and then had a great lunch afterward. Caroline was an angel throughout the Sunday service - an hour and a half long and hardly a peep from her- she was content pretty much the whole time. Zack finally took her out about the last 15 minutes. Pretty impressive when you're 9 months old! The Easter bunny came to see Caroline and brought her a sippy cup (she's not too sure about that one), a new book, and a tea set. She was most excited about the easter grass that GiGi put in the baskets at her house. Pulling it out of the basket was so much fun! Caroline is wearing one of the Feltman dresses that my sister and I wore as babies. It fit her perfectly, and blue is her color! :-)

Da da da da

That's Caroline's new babbling phrase...and Caroline's "Da Da" sure does love to hear it!

Reunited!

GiGi found Bug!! My mom called me over the weekend to say that she was shopping and found bug in a store. Guess which one? Big Lots! I knew I loved that place! :-) Caroline was reunited with Bug on Monday night and her expression was priceless. She lit up and you could just see the recognition spread across her face into a big smile. She even gave Bug a kiss! Whenever we press Bug to play her "twinkle twinkle" song, Caroline breaks into the biggest smile. So sweet! Thanks GiGi for bringing bug home! I wish I could have captured the moment she saw bug on camera, but here's a picture of Caroline from yesterday, playing with her long lost friend.

Bookworm

Caroline LOVES books. Seriously, the girl would rather read than do anything else, including eat. We have all of her books in a basket beside the rocking chair where we feed her, and now she thinks she needs a book read to her after every few ounces of her bottle. She'll stop eating, push the bottle away, and lean over the side of the chair toward the books. She will even choose the book she wants! No kidding! If we hold two books in front of her and give her the choice, she will touch the one she wants us to read. And if we read one she doesn't want to hear?.....she either starts to fuss or slams the cover shut! She's a hoot! She definitely has her preferences. It is lots of fun to see her little personality blossom each day. In other news, the growling is finally making an exit and has been replaced by babbling! Ma,ma,ma; ba,ba,ba are so nice to hear! She still growls once and a while, but it's not her primary "language" anymore. On Thursday, she learned how to go from a lying to a sitting position on her own. Still nothing on the crawling front yet. She rolls and wiggles herself around wherever she needs to go. Although just this morning we noticed that she is getting closer than she has ever been to being on her hands and knees. So stay tuned....we may have a crawler soon!

Here are some pictures of our little bookworm and her favorite pastime:

Hemangioma update

Caroline is still taking propranolol, and is doing great with it. We stopped the home health nursing several weeks ago because Dr. Prose felt that since Caroline has had no problems with her blood pressure up to this point, there is no reason to think she will start to have problems now. I haven't really updated much with pictures of the hemangioma because, well, there's not much to update. There has not really been a dramatic change overall. The hemangioma is definitely smaller, and lighter in color, so it has certainly helped; it just hasn't been the "magic bullet" we were hoping for. Truth be told, my expectations were probably very unrealistic. I had just hoped that somehow the medicine would just magically make it disappear. That's unlikely to happen. Some of the pictures I have seen from other parents whose children have been on it have truly been remarkable. Dr. Prose has said that we probably will not see the same dramatic effects due to Caroline's age and the growth stage of her hemangioma. It stands to reason that she would not respond in the same way that a much younger child would whose hemangioma is rapidly growing. Makes sense. I really wish we could have done the propranolol from the beginning and skipped the steroids altogether, but that was not an option at the time, so I've got to try to let that go. All that being said, I'm so happy we made the decision to start Caroline on the propranolol. It definitely stopped the growth and made it smaller, and the hope is that it will jump start the involution phase (when the body reabsorbs the hemangioma). I'm hoping we can keep her on it at least until she's nine months old (I think Dr. Prose will agree) to make sure the hemangioma is done growing before weaning her off. Then the plan is to wait and see for a while.