We are heading to Little Rock again this Wednesday for the 3rd laser treatment on Emma's port-wine stain on her face. My mom is coming with Emma and I this time. The 1st and 2nd treatments were so effective at lightening the appearance of her stain. We are very hopeful that it won't take the 8-10 treatments they predicted in the beginning to remove the majority of her mark. She is responding so well to the treatments. The doctors told me that not everyone responds, so I am very thankful it is working for her. The doctors are going to do another complete job where they put her under for about 10 minutes or less. They have to do this because she will be getting her upper eye lid treated and they have to insert an eye shield which would probably be impossible to do if she was awake.
Today, Emma and I went up to visit a pediatric opthalmologist. He dialated her eyes to check for any problems. Many port-wine stain patients (if their stain is over an eye) end up having internal eye problems such as glaucoma. They say this is because of the conglomeration of blood vessels and the eye not draining properly. Since it doesn't drain properly, pressure builds up in the eye, which is glaucoma. But the good news is, it is fairly simple to treat with a daily eye drop.
The doctor said her eyes look balanced except for her optic nerve. It is slightly larger than the one in her good eye. So, he's sending Emma up to the hospital to perform the eye pressure test. (I thought that's why I drove all the way up to his office today.) But apparently most doctors can't perform that test on a 13mo. old safely without putting them out for a minute with a bit of gas in a hospital.
So, my next mission tomorrow is to try to organize the eye pressure test along side the laser treatment while we're in Little Rock. Getting knocked out once is better than twice in my opinion! Little Rock Children's hospital is really awesome! So I'm very hopeful we get it all scheduled together. The people there are so SO nice, patient, helpful, and happy. It is always nice to go there, because the people really show you they care. Plus, I love driving back through Arkansas during the fall. There are so many beautiful trees! (That's were Eric and I went to college, too.)
So hopefully in 8-10 weeks we will see some more major progress on Emma's red spot. It's really interesting how after the bruising from the laser goes away, the stain itself keeps fading and fading for several more weeks until finally, you can really see a big difference!
