MRI Results

This is the MRI taken the day Addison had all of her procedures and the first day of her Vincristine dose. The white mass on the left side of her face is the hemangioma (the white part up top is her brain). From this slice you can tell that only about one third showed on the outside and two-thirds of the mass was on the inside. Notice how close to her throat it encroaches. And this little beauty was taken last week, her seventh dose of Vincristine. See the mass, it's super small! From all the MRI slices they are able to compose a 3-D model of the mass and measure its volume. The mass before was 79.3 cc to 47.4cc. That's over 50% decrease! To say the least we are super, super excited. But I think the pictures say it better than any words we could write.

So kiss Bettie goodbye, she's leaving and is not coming back! Our trial still has four more doses of Vincristine and then they'll decide if they want to keep her on weekly doses or try to space them out every other week and see if they can hold off the growth.

Addison's arm where her PICC line is at is a little irritated. It's red, bumpy, and flaky. We think it's a result of an alcohol based cleanser they used while she was admitted for RSV. I really wish I hadn't left to pack my stuff up to go home. I came back into the room right after they had cleaned her arm with it. That was two weeks ago and this last Wed. I noticed her skin was really dry around the dressing. I put Aquaphor on it and the next morning I noticed the Aquaphor had made the dressing pull up. I had the home health care nurses come over and change her dressing and we saw how irritaed her skin was underneath. When they pulled the dressing off today the part that was irritated on Wed had healed and now there is a new area of irritation and they whole area under the dressing is inflammed. They put a topical steroid on her skin and we will put more on it on Mon. when we have the dressing changed again. They say it may take some time but everything should heal up fine. These kids' skin is so sensative that Renee (our Chemo nurse who takes care of all the hemangioma kids on Vincristine) has developed a specific way to dress their PICC lines so that their skin doesn't break down. Her method doesn't follow protocol so everytime someone else does it they want to put cleansers and antibacterial agents on and it's these products that break their skin down. So if the parents aren't there everytime the dressing is messed with, when someone besides Renee changes it, and watching like a hawk it is almost asured that it will be done wrong. This is why we love Renee, she's found ways to protect the kids' skin so they don't have to deal with infections etc. They have enough to deal with already. Addison's arm will heal up, it'll just take awhile. Till next week!