GrinTwins: October 2008

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Can you believe I'm 34 and have 3 kids?

Papaw and MeMe visit from Chattanooga

Perhaps you wondering how the Fraleys can produce not only one of the most beautiful babies ever seen by human eyes, but one of the only cherubs gifted with mystic powers only given to unicorns?

The only sign us mere mortals have of knowing this fact is the red-crested bump precisely placed on the top of her head, right above her butter-soft forehead. Oh, and the sweet smell of strawberries that wafts around her.

The sterile, impersonal medical industry calls a bump like this a hemangioma.

The scoop:
Hemangiomas appear in the first weeks of life. They are connected to the circulatory system and filled with blood. They then become a flat red patch often with blood vessels you can see. If they are on the skin surface they can look like a strawberry. If they are deeper in the skin they look like a bluish lump. Sometimes they have both a surface and a deep part. Hemangiomas can also grow on the internal organs. These behave in the same way as those on the skin.

Hemangiomas grow fast in the first few months then slow down in the second six months of life. Sometimes they keep growing after the child's first birthday. When they have stopped growing , they tend to stay the same size for a while then start to disappear. Some will go away completely while others will leave behind a soft fatty lump. It is variable how quickly they disappear. Some have nearly gone by 3 years, while a small number (less than 1 in 10) are still there up to 8 or 9 years old.

Usually, hemangiomas do not cause any problems. Most hemangiomas disappear by themselves and do not need any treatment.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Monitor Update

Ding dong the monitor is gone, the monitor is gone! Winter was "episode" free last month so we can finally disconnect him from the machine. Yay!

The twins got their first seasonal cold this week, poor guys...