Sarah's appointment at the Children's Hospital

So to give the background, when Sarah was born, the nurses immediately noticed a large bump on her neck. The Doctor said he felt it when he was delivering her. They took her for an ultrasound and it was in their opinion that is was a cyst. The pediatrician on duty said not to worry about it because it wasn't affecting her breathing or hurting her in any way, but said that at some point, it would probably have to be surgically removed. They referred me to the Children's Hospital to have her be evaluated by the specialists.

Her 1st appointment was supposed to be in January but because the Doctor's kept getting called out to emergencies, they kept postponing her appointment until we were finally seen yesterday. Over the last 3 months since she was born, the "cyst" has dissolved and gone away. Her primary care physician couldn't even find it at his last appointment with her but told me to take her to the Children's Hospital anyway to be sure.

So, I took her yesterday totally expecting them to look and say, "It's gone, you can take her home now." But what they actually said is that she has what is called "fibromatosis coli/ torticollis". This is how they explained it to me: that when she was born, she got a tear in the muscle of her neck. That caused a big blood clot there that the Doctor's thought was a cyst. Over time, the blood clot goes away but the tear made her neck muscle shorter on one side so that she holds her head to one side. I thought all this time that it was just because she is young and didn't have full head control yet. But they said that if it is not corrected, it will cause spine problems.

What this means is that I will have to start taking her to physical therapy. Do you know who does physical therapy around here on babies under 6 months old? No one. I will have to take her to Madera (which is down by Fresno) for x-rays and physical therapy. I am not worried, this isn't life threatening, and she will be fine. But, I was surprised to get the news and a little bummed about how far we will have to drive. We'll be ok though. Love to you all!