To Doctor's Office We Go...

On Wednesday, Ella had a check-up in Memphis with her doctor that handles her hemangiomas. Lee has been accepted into a leadership program for Gibson County (yay Lee) and he was gone on a field trip the whole day. So...Ella, Virginia, and I loaded up and headed to Memphis, but not without some help! Thank goodness that my Dad was able to take off work and go with me. There was no way that I could have handled both babies by myself that day. One day soon, I'm sure I am going to have to take them both out in public by myself, but I will try to avoid that at all costs. Ha!!

Ella enjoyed riding in the car next to "Baby" and kept regular tabs on her by letting us know what she was doing. If Ella puts her finger up to her mouth and says, "Shhhh", that means baby is sleeping. If baby is crying or waking up, then Ella says, "Baby, baby" over and over again. She is such a good big sister!

This is a pic from a few days ago, but it was so cute of her in her carseat in Lee's new car (Yay again for Lee...now he can haul all of his kids around)...Oh, and don't mind Ella's nose...she skinned her nose and had a large dark red scab for a few days...

Back to the doctor appointment...Ella's hemangioma growth is stable for now and hasn't changed much in the last 6 months. The doc confirmed that her right eyelid is still droopy, but we will wait until she is 4 or 5 to address that issue, if it hasn't changed on its own by then. A droopy eyelid can cause astigmatism or other vision problems, but as long as we continue to see Ella's opthalmalogist regularly to keep a check on it, everything should be fine. When I asked if we should check into laser therapy for her face, he said that everything should fade by the time she is about 7 and if we want to do anything at that point, we can look into it.

He mentioned that on her forehead is a certain type of hemangioma, which is called by a certain name, but I can't for the life of me remember what he said. Regardless, it meant tiny blood vessels and they can either stay the same or go away, but probably won't get any worse.

These are basically all things that we already knew, but we are very excited that we don't have to go back for a whole year!! We have been driving to Memphis regularly for doctor appointments since Ella was 1 month old (Virginia's age of her first Memphis trip), so this will be great!! All of the nurses were excited to see Ella walking around now and to meet her little sister. The staff photographer (who takes Ella's pictures every appointment to mark the progress of the marks on her face) introduced himself to my dad as "Ella's Personal Photographer". The UT Medical Group (specifically Dr. Fleming's office) is great and I would highly recommend them to anyone!

Here is Virginia peeking out of one eye to see where she is going...

On our way out of the doc office, Ella decided that she needed to take a break from walking to the car and have a seat on the curb. She was just relaxing and proving to me that she (or any toddler, probably) can't be rushed!!