Sans Hemangioma...sorta

Yesterday was the fateful day of Jane's first laser treatment to remove her birthmark. All told, it was a little more intense than either she or I anticipated.

We did take some pre-laser shots so we could record the difference and progress.

She was actually fairly excited starting the day off--mostly she was looking forward to a day of attention, and she was also pretty excited that she got a special outing without any other kids.

Some of our best pictures come when we tell Jane not to smile.

In preparation for the procedure, we applied a numbing cream so it wouldn't hurt when they used the laser. We covered it with plastic wrap to keep it from coming off or spreading around. She earned a poptart by sitting still so I could put it on--hence the chocolate face.

Jane did get progressively more nervous the farther we got into the hospital, passing through the stages of registration, checking in, and waiting in the waiting room. She reached the peak of her nervousness when we entered the operating room. But, kudos to her, she still willing participated in everything the doctors and I instructed her to do.

Because the birthmark is so close to her eye, rather than wearing the light-protecting goggles like the rest of us, Jane's eyes were simply covered by a towel.

The laser itself looked something like a large pen attached to a machine. The doctor put it in place, then pressed a button and basically zapped Jane's face. It was kind of weird, and I completely understood why Jane twitched violently every time it happened. You can see her nervousness in her tense chin muscles.

It went ok for the first bit, but then they got to the blood vessels that were basically directly on her eyelid--the part where the cream hadn't really gotten, meaning Jane was not numb there. She completely freaked out, screaming and kicking and fighting to get away. I felt really bad when the doctor and nurses wrapped her really tight inside a sheet, immobilizing her arms. She was NOT excited about that. In the end, the last few shots were done with me pinning her body down to the table and the nurses holding her head. Oh my goodness, she was ticked.

The ice pack didn't really help, it probably just made it all hurt more.

When we first met with the dermatologist about having this procedure done, I fully expected the insurance to deny based on it being cosmetic and not medically necessary. Because of that, I wasn't as concerned at the time with how the procedure would go and what recovery would look like. I fully admit to being surprised that her birthmark looked about a hundred times worse when we went out than when we went in.

In fact, it reminded quite a lot of how it looked around the time we started the steroids when she was a baby.

I did not want this whole experience to be traumatizing for the rest of her life, so we opted for the "Let's all be really excited about how brave you are and how it will be when you're all better!" option. We went to visit Grandma Karrie, who works right next door to the hospital, and then we went out to lunch with Chris. Jane was quite excited about all the attention--and the storybook, candy, colorful pen, and ice cream--and she seemed much happier by the time we got home. Even though her birthmark looked even worse.

Still wanting to track the progress of this whole endeavor, we took a picture right before bed. As you can see, it has started to swell up a bit. The doctor told us that it's likely to swell enough to force her eye closed. That will be interesting.

And again this morning--

She was less interested in having her picture taken at this point. Attention only goes so far, apparently.

Sunlight can be quite damaging to the whole process at this point, so we are going to keep it covered with gauze anytime she leaves the house (or in the house if there is a lot of sunlight coming through the windows). It was lucky that it was very overcast yesterday so we didn't have to cover it directly after the procedure. That probably would have been even more traumatizing. She will have it covered during church and school for the next few weeks, in addition to any other outings. Once the bruise is completely gone, we will only use sunscreen to protect it--though that is going to be applied almost constantly until the end of July. Apparently the UV rays from the sun can cause the area to turn permanently brown. Which would completely defeat the whole purpose of having the birthmark removed. Lame. We'll go with the gauze and sunscreen, thank-you-very-much.

So that's that. Now you all know. Please don't ask Jane about it. She'll either spit at you and run away or she might just punch you in the gut.